Slow to rise. Slow to cast off unvivid
shreds of night’s final dream. Slow to embrace
shreds of night’s final dream. Slow to embrace
the clemency of a flannel gray day
blurred by early morning rain, yesterday’s
razor-harsh sun now mercifully dulled
by pewter clouds. I lie still. Listen
for the insistence of obligation.
Hear only silence. An open door.
Outside, the delphinium cut to earth
in spring offers fresh spikes of blue flowers.
Climbing beans savaged in early summer
by rats and rabbits, though still leafless now,
tendril over bricks with their few small pods
to reach the ironwork outside my window.
Todd Campbell is a speechwriter, poet, and mosaic artist based in Seattle, where he has lived for the past three decades. His poetry has appeared in Pangyrus, Poet Lore, Reed Magazine, Tar River Poetry, Watershed, and elsewhere.