Predawn Song

A bird that sings an hour before the dawn
when darkness still envelops everything,
assures me that the woes I dwell upon
will pass like night. I love to hear him sing.
The lengthy silence of the night is broken
by lovely singing I am thrilled to hear,
and I don’t even mind to be awoken
before days breaks as sunbeams first appear.
It dawns on me that singing in the dark
is something like what I have tried to do:
to herald light’s arrival, like a spark,
in darkness that precedes a sky of blue.
A bird that sings outside before day breaks
inspires my own song with one he makes.

 

Mario A. Pita

Unforeseeable

One moment, I was looking toward the sky,
while reveling in floating on my back,
enjoying waves I was surrounded by,
without a care, a shark that could attack,
feeling blissful after months of woe,
diving, like a dolphin, having fun,
in the murky depths where I would go
to touch the sand, then swim back to the sun.
Then I was staring not up toward the blue –
instead the ceiling of an ambulance,
though in the waves I didn’t have a clue
there’d be this sudden change of circumstance.
My heart had started racing in the sea.
Which moment will come last we can’t foresee.

Mario A. Pita

Galactic Dandelion

A dandelion first looks like a sun
that’s blooming in a universe of grass,
although it’s small, unlike a cosmic one,
and not made out of blazing plasmic gas
but little yellow petals for its rays,
that don’t give off a solar heat or light
yet still are worthy of a poet’s praise,
though they will not illuminate a night.
But when its tiny garden sun is gone,
the dandelion forms a galaxy,
a globular ensemble on the lawn,
a cotton ball of stars where I can see,
as William Blake said in his Earthly hour,
the heavens shining in a wild flower.

Mario A. Pita

Globular cluster, NGC 1783, photo by the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA.
Dandelion photo from the book Hyper Nature by Philippe Martin.

“Wonderful”

Although she’s old and has no memory
of years of her long life that have gone by,
she always smiles when she speaks to me
and tells me I am wonderful, and I
respond that she is wonderful as well,
delighted that I have the chance to see
the sweetness of her soul wherein I dwell
on kindness that survived infirmity.
Time takes all that we are and we have been,
and it looks like there will be nothing left
when it, and dying, ultimately win,
but I pray Someone will undo the theft:
I pray for her, and me, and all, O Lord,
that in Your love our lives will be restored.

Mario A. Pita

Celibacy Idolatry

My body was reserved for only God,
and though it spasmed, pleading for release,
until I felt like some obstructed clod
in fear of my own flesh that wouldn’t cease,
I mortified that flesh with packs of ice,
supposedly for saving of my soul
from being caught within the grip of vice,
yet found that I was worshiping control.
But idols I’ve revered instead of God
have fooled me into thinking they were good,
so I have failed to see each was a fraud,
just like the ones of plastic or of wood.
Please pardon my idolatry mistakes:
O, Jesus, free me from revering fakes.

Mario A. Pita

Pattering

The fall of droplets on my car’s windshield
sounds like the simmer of veggies when sautéed.
Because a rain fell on them in some field,
they sprouted, grew, and into meals were made.
The sound is comforting upon the pane,
reminding me while I drive to my job
of home-cooked meals made possible by rain,
with treats like buttered corn still on the cob.
But pattering on glass as drops fall on it
won’t water any veggies on a farm.
All that may grow from it may be a sonnet,
inspired by its soft, acoustic charm:
I write of how rain falling makes me feel
since often words too make a wholesome meal.

Mario A. Pita

Photo: Simson Petrol

Window Diamonds

At night, the droplets on a windowpane,
lit by streetlights when my home was dark,
were multitudes of diamonds made of rain,
and each one scintillated like a spark
that dimmed and grew in brilliance as I passed
this treasure that impressed me with its jewels
which, unlike gems of stones, would hardly last
and drip down to the windowsill as pools.
But though the treasure didn’t last for long,
in memory it’s had a great duration
and made me want to write for it a song,
because it formed a gorgeous decoration:
each droplet gleaming like a precious gem,
I treasured in the night the sight of them.

Mario A. Pita

Photo: Shannon Ridge