Dawn's New Name

Fields of light flicker as night descends.

The Encompassing fills black holes,

doles out excess riches across the leaden sky.

Trees lower their arms in quiet rest.

Skeletal fingers scratch out calligraphy:

a palindrome, dawn’s new name.

A traveler raises the shade on

an unpainted window, unfurls shutters,

inhales the drunken fragrance of rain.

Brushstroke shadows spread along

the wall. He splashes his face, towels away

a residue of soap, his visage renewed

in a portraiture of hope. How he yearns

for a cup of freshly brewed coffee, for the taste

of promise on his chipped, white plate.

Light births the day, a hairline crack in a mirror.

Black becomes the new white. The Encompassing

dons a robe, stitches in dawn's new name: Eve.