Two Poems by Bert Meyers

Daybreak

Birds drip from the trees.
The moon's a little goat
over there on the hill;
dawn, as blue as her milk,
fills the sky's tin pail.

The air's so cold as a gas station
glitters in an ice-cube.
The freeway hums like a pipe
when the water's on.
Streetlights turn off their dew.

The sun climbs down from a roof,
stops by a house and strikes
its long match on a wall,
takes out a ring of brass keys
and opens every door
*

Stars Climb Girders of Light

Stars climb girders of light.
They arrange themselves
in the usual place,
they quit before dawn,
and nothing's been done.

Then men come out.
Their helmets fill the sky;
their cities rise and fall
and the men descend,
proud carpenters of dew.

Men brief as the storm,
more than five feet of lightning,
twisted and beautiful.
Man made like his roads,
with somewhere to go.
*