Summer Morning – David Britton

1995 Crabbe Memorial Competition – Joint First Prize
Adjudicators: Jeni Couzyn and Lawrence Sail

Until a man speaks
all this is silence.

Out in the mist the cattle
lift their heads back and implore
the gods and graces
to continue blessing.

Man is at wonder still,
the door of his day
half-open.
Marvels in hearing how
the silence is both raucous
and unbroken.

Listens til
their utmost breath is fetched
out of the breast,
and goes on its long journey to the sun.

Longs, and is at rest.

He hears it
as a prayer of his round
the frontiers of the known
and the unknown.
He lets these hoarse tones shout
the hugeness he breathes in
but can”t speak out.

He breathes until his breast
is full of light.
Rises.
Descends.
Still smiling at the gifts
of night
of dream
of chance.

Switches on sound
and time
and circumstance

Copyright © David Britton 1995