Poem of the Day: ‘The Morning Watch’

For Holy Week, between Palm Sunday and Easter, The New York Sun is presenting a selection of living poets, each reading his or her own work. To start off the week, the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum, reads “The Morning Watch,” about falling asleep in church as a child. In the ubi sunt tradition — asking of the dead, Where are they now? — the poem owes a debt to Manuel Bandeira’s 1927 “Profundamente” and James Agee’s under-appreciated 1951 young-adult novella, The Morning Watch (with which it shares a title). In ten-line stanzas of accentual tetrameter, rhymed in the second, sixth, and tenth lines, the poem concludes: “They have all gone home to sleep. / Only elsewhere will they rise…”Joseph Bottum reads “The Morning Watch”The Morning Watchby Joseph BottumI was sure that I would stayAwake last night, lasting throughTo daybreak and the Easter light—A dawning through the dimmed stained glassOf Lazarus Rising, Jerusalem’s Daughters,St. James in shades of red and blue.Feigning wakefulness, I traced Curved lines in the high ceiling.And there, near rows of the doused candles,I fell asleep on the hardwood pew.Last night I proudly told my parentsThat I could stay awake to keepThe Easter vigil, not just my hour.And when I awoke, the night had passed.Through eastern windows, the morning twilight,Stained red and blue, had begun to seep.A corduroy jacket covered me.I flailed awake, and my grandfather, watchingHis hour, wrapped me in his arms.My parents had gone home to sleep.When I was eight, I fell asleepAnd missed my watch on Easter night.My father, grandfather, Mrs. Byrne,Who covered me with her warm coatIn St. James’ Church—Where are they now?Time has doused the kind and brightWho watched for me. In passing years, They have all gone home to sleep.Only elsewhere will they rise—to a breathOf new air and the dayspring light.___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, The Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘The Morning Watch’

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