William Barnhill

The sun beguiled its way through spotted clouds;
Aiming a course across the mourning heaven.
Columns of celestial light, split into scallop shells of golden amber;
Touching the waving grass, green hills, wooded ridges and hollows.
Dark Brown earth, revealed by the farmer's gathering;
Lying damp from the night's passing;
Mounded into rows and furrows, ready for the next cycle of planting.
Covering the span from hedgerow to forest, hungry black crows gather;
Coveting the spoils of the season's harvest;
Reviling in their finds, releasing joyous squawks to echo across the valley.

One by one the children awake;
Birthed from hollows deep within weed and thicket.
Upon trails veiled and shaded;
Lined with oak trees spreading branch and bush ends gnarled root.
The children of the morning sun arise from their burrows to greet a new day.
Rumbled tufts of brown, crimson and gray appear above the mist and dew.
Claiming a place beneath the mourning Sun;
They survey a world of grass, tree and field;
Wearing charms of yellow pollen, rose pedal and maple leaf;
Autumn's fond reminiscence of summer's gentle passing.

Quietly they move, nor snap or rustle flees from little feet;
Plotting the grassy weed and loving the earth as much as it is possible to do so;
Whose most gentle touch can be so soft;
Making the early breeze jealous and the night jasmine humble.
Who's most passive way so light and good;
Making the flowers forget what the honey bee has stolen.

All the children are about;
Sent upon their daily deeds by movement of the great light in the heavens.
Burrowing, climbing, feeding and rejoicing in the pursuit of living;
Knowing only of what they need;
Feeling absolute within this place.
Greeting each dawn, the morning light, as if it were a last chance to say good-bye.
Knowing that within their little hearts their labor will provide;
Another turn upon this splendor beneath this sun of the morning.