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Before Dawn

1949 –

You ask me again this evening
          at what price

Does wisdom finally come
          in any life

Or at any age & now I think
          I know

The answer swear to me that
          when I tell you   

It is only everything you believe 

You will travel as far from this city
          as you can before

The streets grow smeared & lost
          to the smug

& promiscuous coming of the day

David St. John is the author of over ten collections of poetry, including Study for the World's Body: New and Selected Poems (Perennial, 1994), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He currently serves on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets.

Themes

About this Poem

“Those late-night, before-dawn conversations we once had routinely with friends when young later become inadvertent accountings of what’s been gained, but also of what’s been lost, along the way—those unexpected human expenses exacted by and paid to experience.”
—David St. John

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More by this poet

Beeches

The forest is its own thanksgiving
Walking a mile or so from the road
Past the lake & ancient post office
I skim the long bodies of the beech trees

David St. John

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The Park

It was I think a small town in Ohio

I taped to the wall above my office desk the postcard
Of Klimt’s painting called The Park

An example of cliché so profuse it touched my heart

David St. John

1998

Overlooking the Cortile

^{for T}

Late winter yet we stood at the open window
Its green wood shutters pushed back like wings
Against the walls of the ancient building
We stood at the aperture of the narrow room
Looking down onto the fountain in the cortile
Her old room now mine & she said nothing

David St. John

2021

Poems

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Before Dawn

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