Tessa Kale

Aubade

The morning smells like melons.
Green and ripe, about its business
in the not-yet heat.

A bird sings in the treetops,
an orange slug crosses the path,
valiant and deliberate.

The soul understands:
the not-yet,
the throat filled with a mysterious joy,

the difficult passage from hate to love
which is the soul’s business.

Tessa Kale is the author of an award-winning collection of poetry (Crow’s Cup, Discovery Award, Red Mountain Press, 2021) and an award-winning chapbook (The Hudson Line, Finishing Line Press Award, 2010) and has publications in periodicals such as The Yale Review, The Western Humanities Review, Prelude, and others.