#MIDDLEBURY
Meditation for the Silence of Morning
Adam Clay
I wake myself imagining the shape
of the day and where I will find
myself within it. Language is not often
in that shape,
but sentences survive somehow
through the islands of dark matter,
the negative space often more important
than the positive.
Imagine finding you look at the world
completely different upon waking one day.
You do not know if this is permanent.
Anything can change, after all,
for how else would you find yourself
in this predicament or this opportunity,
depending on the frame? A single thought
can make loneliness seem frighteningly new.
We destroy the paths of rivers to make room for the sea.
About this poem
“This poem considers the clean slate of the morning and where the mind goes before a day begins. A thought, like a river, eventually leads to the sea, though eventually the sea can overtake the very thing that’s created it.” – Adam Clay
About Adam Clay
Adam Clay is the author of “Stranger” (Milkweed Editions, 2016). He teaches at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Adam Clay. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
