Morning finds us at a kitchen table
Some way short of a banquet hall.
We light a candle
To illumine modest fare, creased faces, the plainest of thoughts.
Meal at an end,
A book of poetry falls open
To Hafez, Du Fu, or Blake.
Sage householders that we be,
The naked candle flame is nudged aside
Lest a dust jacket flash to kindling.
But is this not what morning affords:
To set aflame the paeans of verse,
The sacred summons of a book,
This drowsy cottage,
Our breakfast lives?