The Cold Morning Before
This fine crisply cool late summer morn is wasted,
or rather I am, as it bursts unbidden upon the room.
The squeaky-wheel bird has nested atop my head
and he knows but one single, terrible, treble harmony;
notes played upon the ear and skull, with gusto.
Fine colleagues, do not surround me in sleep, rise;
like the hopes in the strengthened, practised, arm
you showed as we sung evensong until the dawn.
Rise I say; sleep not like the just and righteous man
who bangs, now, heavily upon my shrunken soul.