Taste the Morning

Because who doesn't need an autumn love poem?

Autumn Leaf, Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org

Several years ago, I published a poem called “Taste the Morning.” I think of it at the end of every summer, beginning of every autumn. It’s not the date on the calendar that matters, but the light, the scent, the chill of change.

I share it with you now because we wake each morning to such horrific (chilling) news from wars abroad and at home, I thought maybe you’d rather begin your day with a love poem, instead.

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Taste the Morning

Love is the soul’s light, the taste of morning —Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

Nothing compares to the taste of this morning
when you wake to a chorus of coyotes
voicing the soul’s longing
from the ravine beyond your open window
and see your lover smiling in half-sleep,
the sheet and the lace shadows 
twisting around his torso
as he turns toward you.

You inhale the barest hint of fall,
a surprising coolness alerts your senses
and you pray
Not yet—
just a few more weeks of pretending it is still summer
when lazy mornings taste of 
freshly baked bread, not yet—
just a few more days, hours of heat and pleasure
with nothing to do
but sit and sip iced tea
while day’s yellow dress
skims earth’s brown body.

But with this morning’s breath,
you taste the seedy bitterness of coming shorter days
flanked by long, bleak nights
and you wish you could suck the pulpy flesh
of the grape away from thin skin
but it’s all or nothing—
pulp, seed, skin together.
No separation this morning.

Keep the ritual. Dream 
sweet creamy coffee
and warm kisses
on cool skin. Mourn 
the fallen summer,
seek the soul's
light.

Published originally in a slightly different version in my book Rabbit Sun, Lotus Moon (Mercury HeartLink, 2017) because a poem is never finished.

Holding a postcard of the book cover after I sold out copies of the book. Cover art credit: Meg Leonard. Photo credit: Angela Grout, 2023.