Dawn Rising
Free Verse Poem
In Jackson dawn rises as slowly as a weary, puerperal mother. The sky is a deep, pale azure hidden just above the tree line. With expectant pride it hovers over a new born day with a tender caress. The air brightens with shades of blue awareness and turns the morning a frosty grey. Head lights awaken the city like town criers of old. As cars pass over the dewy roads, they swish a soft alarm. The fog begins a lazy, upward rolling, just an ancient scroll from off the Fork River below the I-40 Highway. I have Jackson on my mind, where the table is always set for company, for family, for friends, sometimes by the Neely’s and sometimes at the Soul Food Kitchen. Maybe it’s the sway of reaching tree tops, the moss laden stumps or the vast, winding back roads dotted with homes that remind me of something lost. Among the shrubs are white houses without picket fences. The earth somehow holds grazing cows, horses, buffaloes and whispering brooks within its sacred folds. And yet, there are still places to roam, to wonder as huge blackbirds flap off grassy knolls into spacious spaces destined for friendly places. Every turn leads somewhere, to someone known, no dead paths, only divided and gingerly traveled ways home.
more by DEBRA BISHOP
Photograph by Sam Wheeler
