This original poem lingers in an orchard still held by the last blue of night, where first light arrives quietly enough to feel like forgiveness.
Original poem
Before dawn, the orchard keeps its counsel.
The branches wear the cold
like silver water around the wrist.
A pear left high in the tree
holds the dark the way a lantern does
after the door has closed behind it.
Somewhere a blackbird tests one note,
then keeps the rest beneath its tongue
for the mercy of another minute.
The grass is wet enough to remember stars.
Each step sinks softly into it,
as if the earth were listening from below.
Thin mist moves between the trunks,
stitching tree to tree,
mending what the night unfastened.
Morning does not break here.
It gathers—on bark, on stone,
on the quiet curve of unpicked fruit—
until even my empty hands
seem to carry something tender,
some weightless proof that loss can loosen.
A hidden spring turns its clear coins.
Small insects wake to their patient trades.
Silence changes its profession.
And what brightens is not only the field.
It is the guarded room within me,
opening window after window to the air.
When the sun finally lifts behind the hill,
it conquers nothing.
It simply names what was already there.
Keep reading
If you enjoy this hush between darkness and arrival, read What the Wind Carries or The Lantern Beneath Rain.
