Andrew Shields Early to Rise

ANDREW SHIELDS ____________________________

Early to Rise

Sleep can also come too easily, and dreamlessness can wake you up at dawn to a world where the birds have forgotten to sing. The sun staggers up into the sky behind bedraggled clouds that don’t know where to put their rain. No rivers seem to want it; the trees are ducking; the hills have nowhere to go and nowhere to put whatever might be offered. You should have stayed awake another hour, until the nighttime breeze stopped being shy and each mosquito in your room had had its fill.