Suburban Sunrise Poem by Robert Charles Howard

A trail wends its way
Between the corn
and Metrolink rails
where songbird choirs
serenade our morning stroll.

The rising sun spreads
shafts of light
through prismatic clouds -
bathing the sky with
pink and lavender strata.

Beside the tracks
a cardboard sign
foretells the coming
of a new apartment hive:
“You could be home already”

Soon hammer strokes
will echo in the valley
like woodpeckers
feasting on bugs
in a sycamore snag -
and cornfields will morph
Into fescue moats
ringing identical rows
of vinyl-clad palaces.

Hovering over new tacked roofs,
the intrepid sun will
still cast halos
on our morning hikes -
while songbirds serenade
from wires and chimneys
beneath the pastel sky.


(October, 2007)