Sunrise as a Slow Betrayal of the Night

Photo: Dominic Morel via FreeImages.com

The intimate dark of early morning
A solitary walk
Skirting a pool of electric light
And then past another.
Anonymity among the photon-sparse landscape
Sounds muffled by the thick darkness.

Beginning with an inaudible murmur
A gift emerges on dark hands
For me alone.
Proffered necklace-like
Across the horizon
All crimson
And diamonds
And lapus lazuli
Tumbling off the black-velvet drapery.

The closeness of the night
Opens up with a broadening light
Laying bare an intact landscape
For denizens all.
The Universe no longer my personal cloak
It is pulled away in the cold rising sun
With the slow realization
Of its betrayal.