~aubade Poem by Mike Finley

Aube

The darkness parts reluctantly
A dog in the black barks once,
And bats flit silently beside the house
At a boar come by to gnaw the melons
or a deer dipping for a sweet chew of lettuce
The crow of the coq seems premature
The church bells sound seven
But nothing happens, the village
Is fumbling for the snooze button
Then the first hint of lifting
Suffuses the horizon
The light of cars along the Dordogne
appear and disappear as they round curves
Cats, cold and complaining from the chill
Sound sour, then the clatter of a beer truck
Rattling its bottles on a bump in the road
And then the church bell bangs for a whole half minute
And the fathers stumble out of bed
You can hear the ignition and the groan,
the ohs and ahs of changing gears
and Madame Fleury is up in her night coat,
and the dark holds a candle to the world