by Didi Jackson

With the leisure of the snow
falling like a Rothko silence

over the morning, I am astonished.
Although chic-a-dee and titmouse flurry

to the feeder, they do so as timid as winter light
which daily asks for a little more patience

in order to emerge from the frigid night.
The flakes tumble as slow as prophecy,

occasionally buoyant on an invisible breath.
I do not suffer insomnia. I prefer to beat

the dawn; but this I shouldn’t have to explain:
for the morning is naked and beautiful

and yawns many times before turning
on the light. I am there

to see. The birds drop in and out
like lures in a dark ocean littered

with loitering stars. What a drowsy way
to start the day with the silence of God.

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Didi Jackson is the author of Moon Jar (Red Hen Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, New England Review, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, and the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-day. After having lived in Florida and Vermont teaching art history and creative writing, she will soon join the faculty of Vanderbilt University in Spring 2021 teaching creative writing.