Cormorants
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
Morning twilight; in
Their basket the cormorants
Asleep, exhausted. ~ Shiki
The poet notices the tiny things,
Poetical in fact if only seen
With hearts, not just with eyes. His vision sings
To him, inside him, first. His vision gleans
Minutest moments of the quiet kind,
More quiet than an angel’s robe beside
The throne of loud light God, hanging behind,
Yes, hidden partly, silently inside
The realm of overwhelming glory, brash
Enough to kill you if exposed to your
Prosaic eyes. Jehovah is a flash
Of catastrophic fire. High Christ is pure,
More sheer than curled up hunting birds, the best
At slaughter. God and poets watch them rest.