Denise Levertov: "The Love of Morning"

It is hard sometimes to drag ourselves

back to the love of morning

after we’ve lain in the dark crying out

O God, save us from the horror. . . .

God has saved the world one more day

even with its leaden burden of human evil;

we wake to birdsong.

And if sunlight’s gossamer lifts in its net

the weight of all that is solid,

our hearts, too, are lifted,

swung like laughing infants;

but on gray mornings,

all incident—our own hunger,

the dear tasks of continuance,

the footsteps before us in the earth’s

belovéd dust, leading the way—all,

is hard to love again

for we resent a summons

that disregards our sloth, and this

calls us, calls us.

"The Love of Morning" by Denise Levertov. Text as published in Selected Poems, edited by Paul Lacey (New Directions, 2002). 

Art credit: "Footprints in the sand create a classic picture" [Thar Desert, India/Pakistan], photograph by Mark Moxon.