Morning at Blackwater

It’s almost dawn
and the usual half-miracles begin
within my own personal body as the light
enters the gates of the east and climbs
into the fields of the sky, and the birds lift
their very unimportant heads from the branches
and begin to sing; and the insects too,
and the rustling leaves, and even
that most common of earthly things, the grass,
can’t let it begin—another morning—without
making some comment of gladness, respiring softly
with the honey of their green bodies; and the white
blossoms of the swamp honeysuckle, hovering just where
the path and the pond almost meet,
shake from the folds of their bodies
such happiness it enters the air as fragrance,
the day’s first pale and elegant affirmation.
And the old gods liked so well, they say,
the sweet odor of prayer.