Top of the Morning
The early music of my neighbor's long showers
through seven years of drought, through rationing & fines
The fog that walls off heaven & earth
with pearly radiance, diffuse & bright
I call for an end to sorrow & a cessation of mourning
Let the sun rise, let the strong specific light strike
Violets blooming beneath an old brown shrine
cascades of bougainvilla down a red brick wall
Wooden temples whose foundation poles rest
on round stones deep underground
With each tremor they lock tighter
built so by hand-tool joiners
Who measured in ink with a silk thread
The shower stops, & I can get up