The Dawn That Wasn'T Poem by Patrice Toulouse

No roar to hail the red-hot face pushing up

from the distant earthy womb


No swarm of glittering blades

above the coming eastern cavaliers


No clattering parrots festooning scores

through slender sun-spattered trees


I shunned grey

the nighly palimpsests

and went to greet

the drop-like redbreast


on the blue-grey cloth of silent snow