When Evening Seemed Morning

I was digging out the roots

Of an old tree which had died

Some unknown years past. It was late

August and the sky had been cloudy

All day. I paused to rest.

The clouds parted in the east

And somehow the sunlight gleamed

From there instead of from the west,

The red on the clouds’ edge seemed

Like a sunrise. The tall alders,

Possibly sprung from the long felled

Tree whose roots I stood upon,

Looked just as they did

In the mornings of early June:

Ready for life. Autumn was distant.