To Wake Each Morning on the Edge of Woods

Sometimes, early fog—
delight to gaze through white sheaves of air

before a rising sun burns them away,
to love the way hazy trees loom.

More times, rising early to inhabit silence
and watch spotted deer grazing 

morning into reality—
the surprise of rabbits, wild turkeys 

delicious in their oddity, our resident woodchuck 
lumbering across the grass, and the rare fox 

peering back into me. Here, on the edge 
of my wild joy to waking.

Nicholas Samaras

Nicholas Samaras is the author of "Hands of the Saddlemaker" and "American Psalm, World Psalm." He is currently completing a memoir of living underground as a child.

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“Bring the Knife and Bring the Choir”: A Review of American Cavewall Sonnets by C.T. Salazar