Dusk and Dawn

A poem whose title doesn’t quite tell all. It’s one of the multitude I conceived laying on a paltry mattress in a paltry space by a paltry window, probably at dawn – the only time when I could reflect in silence.



Dusk and Dawn
 
There is no point in time and space
When day turns into night
There is no past or present place
Where night becomes the day
There are only moments of greater light
And shadows that are shades of grey
 
A misty morning, the world obscure
Our vision blurred through precipitation
Is still a morning, however impure
Though its time by almanac is defined
The day is still held in anticipation
By even the mathematical mind
 
Dusk precedes the daily dawn
Perpetually the roles are reversed
Evening is from daytime born
Night-time is from dusk developed
The sky seems by the sun traversed
And stars appear by cloud enveloped

But dusk and dawn depict a change
In the time that humans tell
When clocks were not within their range
Life was not lived at a specific hour
Events were timed by the church’s bell
Knowledge of nature was the pauper’s power
 
But, now, absent our animal sense
As technology attempts to dominate
We discard inherited experience
That evolves from the moment child is born
Even lost, the ability to navigate
Yet we dare to define our dusk and dawn
 
Our stirring start has a fearsome finish
Despite all scientific progress
Dread of death does not diminish
Nor does the fascination of birth
Our dawn begins life’s process
Our dusk belies life’s worth

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