For Her Waking

Down the canal they arrive,
the lighted waves of dawn,
ripples, ripples and crests,
singed with the night's orange.
An oriole raises an eye.

"Morning," I announce,
"Morning, you've come too soon.
She, my love, sleeps
uncounting her speckled worries.
Let nothing wake her.

"Let her rise differently
with her own colors,
as the oriole with its orange
and its unenvying eye.
Let us arrive beside nothing
and greet her as waves."

Copyright © 2008 Tom Holmes All rights reserved
from Pre-Dew Poems
FootHills Publishing
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission