The Alsop Review Spring 2002 Poetry Competition First Place

New Every Morning

by Elizabeth Thelen

Every morning I forget how it is.
-- Charles Simic

I'm up first and unbolting
the door to the porch,
feeling a little like Noah,
that first weatherman
who must've stepped
outside every morning
to ask the rain, Today?
For him, early
and alone on deck,
it was probably all
waterslap on boat,
grey sky; here
in rainless November
it's little leaf tags
on the ends of branches
waving "Oh, hi."
Inside, my family
is stirring--an ark
full of creatures
just unburying
their heads. I love
a hymn that goes
New every morning is the love
our wakening and uprising prove.
Which doesn't mean
one day I'll wake
with a dove's
gift-twig in my lap,
telling me that night's
more than over. All I know,
all I ever know,
is today. And today.
And today.

Elizabeth Thelan