Morning and Evening

  
Morning and Evening
 

Sunrise

  














There’s early morning, beautiful,
With little birds that sing.
The light of dawn is that of hope,
As dreams can then take wing.

For what the night had conjured, then,
To realize, we try,
As long as we have bodies, minds,
On which we can rely.

There’s morning, noon and afternoon.
And then comes evening – slowly,
Nearer to the planet’s poles –
And swiftly in the tropics.

But sunset and the dusk are times,
Whatever be the clime,
When life, diurnal, starts to slow,
Approaching sleeping time.

A wave, that’s crested, then subsides
And hollows down to trough.
So also, sanguine humors now
Decline – we’ve strived enough.

So evening is a time to pause,
Reflect – and feelings, sad,
Are now expressed, as these replace
The brighter ones we’ve had.

As the sun’s decline, departure serves
To mime a mortal’s end,
At sunset, birds and humans seek
To turn – and homewards wend.

And species, social, then expect
To meet with friends and kin,
To share what each has gathered. Yet,
For many, no one' s in.

To empty rooms, we now return
To meet with loneliness.
And that, perforce, we try to do –
And so we all “progress”.

But even this, to many, is
By circumstance, denied.
They sleep by day and work at night,
As shifts are multiplied.

And some there are, who choose this life
For reasons of their own.
The light bulb makes it possible.
Accustomed, we have grown.

But light bulbs surely aren’t sun,
Which we, diurnal, need.
Illnesses, of body, mind,
Our modern habits feed.

Like birds, we humans are attuned
To beats of night and day,
But now we move to other drums –
From ancient rhythms stray.

And when we do, we pay a price
That cannot be avoided.
The legacy of eons past
May not be lightly voided.

Our daily rhythms, by the sun,
Our monthly, by the moon,
Through all our wanderings, were set.
They will not leave us soon.

And if we try to fight with these,
In webs, we feel enmeshed.
But if, with these, we can comply,
We feel alive, refreshed.

There’s sunrise, bright and beautiful,
That bids us to arise.
But then there’s sunset – solemn, sad,
That warns us to be wise.

Sunset in Goa, India

So yang and yin do work in us,
As we are cycles, all.
With us, as with the yearly round –
There’s spring – and there is fall.

2014 January 1st, Wed, 3:20 am
Skyway Dhaba, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
(stanzas 8—12 & final added Wed. afternoon)

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