Four-thirty, morning. Unearthly time

by nuns' or any standard;

almost, this soggy May, monastic.

I close my door on sleep

for other sanctuary,

preceded by the birds

who long ago devised

their daylight saving.

Now, saving the daylight,

no other shape abroad

but the swinging step of rain

on rain-soaked turf.
Unbreakable as doom

five streetlamps watch me come

to keep my tryst.

Nailed each to a man-made cross,

usual as air,

we watch, mechanical,

dawn light dispelling glare;

hooding our early brightness in a cloud

tempers the shock

and orders lonely emanations

by a clock.
From Blue Dusk: New and Collected Poems, 1951-2001.  Reprinted by gracious permission from Copper Canyon Press.