Essence of the Dawn

Sitting by the muddy pond

I count crows one by one

Bullfrogs croak in silky silence

There is something sacred

about earthy mud oozing

between your toes

Bluebirds line up on a wire

as I savor the bird’s melodic song

My old dog hears life

beneath this rain soaked ground

Her mystic senses view visions 

underneath the dawning sun

There are mountains to climb

Stones to throw

so you’ve got to love it

or leave me alone

This search is for my essence

A misplaced spirit was hidden by a haze ,

as a moment lost was never really gone

The keeper of your secrets trust 

will never abandon you alone

The weight of the world’s gravity

overwhelms the solitude while sinking down

buried alive barefooted, deep into quick sand

Taste and smell this life's secrets

held in your soul’s sturdy hands

On the outside you wear them like a mask

where your sunburned skin

sheds your incarcerated sins

Squamous cell confusion reigns

Life’s unhealed lesions 

are not a path to hell

" It makes no difference

if it’s night or day

it’s as if the shadows

never seem to fade away "

On this emerging crack of dawn

I’d give everything away I own

for a moment's peace away

from this rocky,  muddy 

barbed wire throne

In the eloquent morning stillness ,

there’s nothing but veiled hope
yawning at the new dawn

Love evades this stigma's bitter sweet being

Crawling out from the shroud of darkness

into the daybreak’s light 

The sun rises from the shadows thrown

illuminating 

some sacred  

hopeful

distant pond...

©  Harlon Rivers