Morning Song – a poem by Bruce Gunther

Morning Song


The wren doesn’t care that it’s early dawn,
or that we can sleep in if we choose.
Its volume swells during a riff that becomes
the song stuck in our heads.
It has shed its own covers and entered
the play of light on the dogwood leaves.
Half-awake, questioning the songbirds’ urgency,
I place my feet on the floor, then stand and take
a brief inventory of my usual aches and pains.

The song, now silent, fills a space that reminds
one of an empty church sanctuary.
Coffee and the toothbrush await, my 
wife’s hair fans about her pillow.
The neighbors’ lawn sprinkler arcs strands
of water above our back fence.
Now the singing resumes – a jazzman
playing his horn, breath insistent 
with its melody of eternal notes.

Bruce Gunther is a former journalist and writer who lives in Bay City, Michigan. He’s a graduate of Central Michigan University. His poems have appeared in Arc Magazine, the Comstock Review, the Dunes Review, Modern Haiku, and others.