Poem #22 of National Poetry Month.  It is also Earth Day today. I guess that is what was more on my mind than I thought it was as this poem reflects.

Night Roses

Burnt orange blaze motion light

 on the house next door

Coming into a back bedroom window

A sense of security

to see things lit up

Tangerine screams in

your dusky yard

The ancient rose bushes

brush the night wind

Sway and bend

like ladies at court

Bowing to the queen butterfly bush

and stately kind king trees

They reach up and up

 into deepest shadow against the stars

Piercing the perfect cloudless sky

that hides nothing

Sliver of silver moon

nailed brightly hung slanted on the curved bend

Top of our earth

Half sleeping

Half waking

 to their own burnt orange ball

Rising as we set

Working as we rest

Smelling roses so sweet

Some bullied by the wind

knocking over ancient trees

Some feeling no breeze

in dust filled spaces

Hot dry places

that no one goes to school

or ever owns a pool

As their sun glows from orange to red

down and down

We revolve

The crickets chirp

The birds wake

to morning their night

The light next door turns off

 and my neighbor scurries out to pick

Spring’s first rose wet with dew