We rise before the rooster cries,
Before the sky begins to blush,
Before the bosses sip their tea,
We sweep the silence with a hush.
The city sleeps in dreams of glass,
We move like whispers through its veins
With a broom, a bucket and barefoot grace,
Erasing footprints made of stains.
The milkman’s cycle hums its tune,
His bell rings a chime for none but us,
The rag-picker sifts through the moon,
While dogs and ghosts make little fuss.
A woman with a cloth-wrapped back
Climbs five flights, water-pot in tow
The taps will dry by eight, she knows,
But now they cough a rusted flow.
Men in uniforms half-worn,
Wait for buses never new
Their shoes still wet from yesterday's dew,
Their hunger hidden, but not through.
A child in gutters draws the sun
With chalk made from a broken brick.
The light comes slow and never warm,
But he believes in morning’s trick.
We are the first breath, not the face,
We paint the dawn, then step aside.
For the city to wake with a polished pride
And forget the hands that kept it dignified.
Unseen, unnoticed, unthanked, we are the painters of the dawn...
