Dawn in the Land of Unknowing

Dawn in the Land of Unknowing

I’m at peace in the early morning hours,

That’s why I like to wake up at sunrise,

Or, even better, a few hours before.

When I go for a walk there is a glow

That slowly grows at the horizon’s edge

As the stars and satellites fade from sight.

Frequent morning walks attune me to the sight

Of the subtle differences in the hours

That form a kind of borderland, or edge,

That separates night from day with the sunrise.

I feel a sense of holiness, a glow,

A calm presence that I’ve known from before.

Like a familiar face from years before,

A recollection that is strong as sight;

A scene from childhood, a campfire’s glow,

The time spent with Dad, uncountable hours,

Camping by ponds that glowed with the sunrise,

That kept me from falling off childhood’s edge.

The borders of the sea, its tidal edge,

Ebbs and flows; where you thought it was before

It disappears in the hours of sunrise.

What once appeared obvious to one’s sight

Becomes, in the accumulated hours,

Remote, like a small candle’s distant glow.

Young lover’s meet, their faces all aglow

While around them the snow softens the edge,

The hedges, fences, the claims on the hours

No longer have the power they had before

Like a door that opens onto the sight

Of returning swans in flight at sunrise.

A time that’s between, the time of sunrise,

When the clouds above capture the sun’s glow.

It’s when Enoch walked with God and the sight

Of creation drew him beyond the edge

Into luminous unknowing before

Day and night and time, before there are hours.

Sometimes a sunrise seems to last for hours,

There’s a glow before dawn when things seem to pause

At the edge of the sight of the unknown.