The stench of oranges and coffee, birds
insisting on their ancient right to speak
conspire to bring the morning to the new
self and drag the I to the slaughter bench
of day. The old self died in the night where
all cows are black. Grey on grey did violence
to the life of yesterday; history
arrived on a white horse in the twilight
and trampled many a pretty flower.
And so the self, crushed beneath the weight
of eons, sought justice in a dreamless
sleep. But justice was a dream and remained
a dream, a not-yet calling with silence.
This justice is at one remove, hiding
among the colours of a rainbow arc.
But monochrome headlines of the morning
impede the coming, bringing different
hues to the breakfast table. Clouds over
Mont Ventoux add to the distance between
the white and black of a Manichean
world and colours of justice yet to come.
Poetic incantations cannot still
the sense of impending dark; no poet
bring the self to glory from a mountain
peak when nature and history conspire
to crush and kill. White butterflies beat breath
against the dying skin; and in the depth
of the woods an owl spreads her tattered wings
against the waning day. The I sits
in Scandinavian silence waiting
in hopeless hope for the justice to come.