After a troubled night, the speaker wakes still tangled in the past, feeling distance and confusion between himself and his lover. In the dark he cannot free himself from old wounds, and their love feels like a horror. But the poem turns when morning comes. Sitting together in sunshine by a small shrine, looking at the mountain walls and the dandelion seeds resting in the grass, the speaker finds a quiet release. The nearness of the beloved becomes enough. The landscape no longer presses in; it seems balanced, held still, and the two lovers feel like the source of that calm. The mood shifts from claustrophobic and anxious to gentle, almost sacred. Morning does not erase the night, but it offers a fresh stillness in which love can stand upright again.
First Morning — Summary
The night was a failure but why not--?
In the darkness with the pale dawn seething at the window through the black frame I could not be free, not free myself from the past, those others-- and our love was a confusion, there was a horror, you recoiled away from me.
Now, in the morning As we sit in the sunshine on the seat by the little shrine, And look at the mountain-walls, Walls of blue shadow, And see so near at our feet in the meadow Myriads of dandelion pappus Bubbles ravelled in the dark green grass Held still beneath the sunshine--
It is enough, you are near-- The mountains are balanced, The dandelion seeds stay half-submerged in the grass; You and I together We hold them proud and blithe On our love. They stand upright on our love, Everything starts from us, We are the source.