Easter Bouquet 2025: Sunrise, by Sally Thomas

 Author of two poetry collections—Motherland, which appeared from Able Muse Press in 2020, and the forthcoming Among the Living—Sally Thomas is co-writer for the Substack newsletter Poems Ancient and Modern, which features a classic poem with a short introductory essay every weekday. Her novel Works of Mercy was published by Wiseblood Books in 2022, as was Christian Poetry in America Since 1940: An Anthology. Wiseblood published her short-story collection The Blackbird in 2024.

Sunrise

Another ordinary day is breaking

In mizzling rain that skims the old flagged walk

And leaves it darkly polished. Low clouds, shaking

Down their chilly burdens, nudge and talk

In mutters. No one comes to share the hour.

Unseen, one lily peels back one white flower.

Through mizzling rain that skims the old flagged walk

With clarity, a thing is done behind

A stone-sealed door. From cloud to cloud a hawk

Slips in and out of sight. The world lies blind

In unmarked sleep. No one has come. The hour

Unwinds itself. The open-throated flower

Shines like a chalice. Now the low clouds break.

No one is looking. No one’s yet awake.