Psalmic

I wake up to moon and stars still gleaming
in the predawn sky, and think, who cares
about someone else’s inscrutable dream?
I’ll insist, like everybody,
Mine is different. Listen.

A great white bird—a swan, perhaps, 
or egret—hard to tell, so blinding
bright its splendid plumage—stood
in our kitchen citing Scripture.
To think of its words now takes me

back to school days, and to certain subjects
strange to me as springbok or lemur—
physics, chemistry, what have you—
poor teachers prosing on
to my utter bewilderment.