"Morning Glory Three" - ©A. Derek Catalano
The Marvelous Morning Glory
When Dawn first brushes back the veil of night,
And spills her pail of soft and pearly light,
Before the robin finds his morning song,
Or shadows of the oak grow lean and long,
There stirs a wonder near the garden wall,
A silent climber, elegant and tall,
Who waits to drink the nectar of the sky—
The Morning Glory, capturing the eye.
O, see the vines like emerald rivers flow,
In twisting tides that ever upward grow!
With leafy hearts that pulse in shades of jade,
They seek the sun and scorn the heavy shade.
Like nimble fingers, tendrils reach and coil,
To lift their beauty far above the soil,
They wind around the trellis and the wire,
Driven by a quiet, green desire.
And then, the buds! Like silken umbrellas furled,
The tightest secrets in the floral world.
They spiral tight in striped and waxy cones,
In hushed and meditative, velvet tones.
But as the golden orb begins to rise,
A miracle unfolds before our eyes;
The torsion yields, the pleats begin to spread,
In hues of royal blue and wine-red.
