To a hillside, a crop of houses cling,
overlook a harbour; a city-port.
White-washed walls absorb a sunlit morning.
Train-tracks and traffic underline a thought.
Birds, gulls and terns, etch the sky with traces
of a coastal breeze; pelicans are drifting.
There’s a long wharf with cargo in cases.
Cranes begin a day of heavy-lifting.
Yellow bus gives way to a staggered start;
the zig-zag pattern of a day takes shape.
A city’s plan runs the way of nature’s art;
suburban portrait draws a cityscape.
. From the suburbs a cityscape is drawn;
. sunshine (as the artist) draws best at dawn.

© Tim Grace, 21 January 2013

To the reader: A new day deserves a fresh dawn. The shadows of yesterday cast aside. And so it was in New Zealand when I woke to a brand new vista. The harbour was already abuzz with import/export activity; an intermingling of nature and business trading terms of interests. The hillside-suburbs, slow to wake, were beginning to stir. Life resembling art…

To the poet: … and who was the artist? The sun. In every respect, this consummate colourist was controlling the medium. The pallet was crisp, not saturated, with cool blues and deep greens. A yellow hue was attending to dark remnants of lingering night. The solid canvas of horizontal swatches became animated with small features of meandering life … drifting, sifting; lifting the day on its way to a zenith noon.

Best at Dawn