Hard Heart of Day

The east goes white in the haze,
An hour from that gold. Scent-limbed,
Glass-skulled, face of a harsh beast,

Each day starts one bright new life
That can’t last more than a day.
The day gives no thought to that.

Think of it! We have a name,
More than a few, for a span
That would blind us to look at

But that is no kind of thing—
A length of sun in our eyes—
As if it were one of us,

A god who could groan for food,
A fiend made of its own fire,
A brute born to grow and die.

When did we start to do this,
To cut the world’s waves to terms,
Each with its myths, core to it,

Each with an edge and a heart?
Was it when we knapped the rocks,
We thought we’d cracked the hard part?