Taylor Brorby

Taylor Brorby
 
Night and Day

I go to bed when birds rise
singing their sweet and sonorous strains
across the dew wet grass.
I go to bed when the grey blue morning
light filters through my pane
like the slow drip of the morning brew
not yet made.
In the midnight of my fits and flashes
I reach out like a sojourner looking
for a message in a bottle
combing the beach shore of tomorrow
and wondering
Where did yesterday go?

Other days I rise when the world
has not yet rubbed its eyes
cleaning the sleep from its baby blues
or shook its head to rattle the imagination of the day.
I turn on a light
a watch-lamp in the neighborhood
like a lighthouse keeping an eye on sailors.
Over the din of the coffee brewing and boiling
I pick at words like a miner with a broadax
breaking away the rock to reveal the jewel.

As the sun bobs across the horizon
and words fill the page like water in a canteen
I sip my coffee and create the simple world I call home.
 
 
Showering

I didn’t shower today
because I felt
that damn good.
I felt like a child
swimming in a sandbox
of crusty dirt,
whose hair is filled
with the soil
of imagination.
Should I have stayed
in bed, splayed like
a mighty river
whose current is
dark and deep?
Where would I have gone?
To church, that hollow
tomb of promises that
leaves me searching
like a sojourner in the night?
Maybe to the store, to search
the archipelagos of my desire,
too deep for friends to understand.
Instead, I wrote.
I cut paper with pen,
piercing into my cavernous
thoughts, crooked and bright,
like a path illuminated by fire.
The meadowlark called to me
from my room, like a lover
whispering his song.
Will you tell, if I share?
I didn’t shower today
because I wanted to remain
wild.
 
 
 
Taylor Brorby is an essayist and environmentalist living in western North Dakota. He writes for The Huffington Post and the EcoTheo Review on the environment and faith.