TWO MORNINGS: A WAKING UP POEM

TWO MORNINGS


Waking up on Fifth Line, when the ground fog
creeps on moonlit streets like a late lover lost
under slept-on sheets, surprises me as still
the best time to rise when mornings are really
midday scrambles to catch something: bus,
tram, train, time, traffic, trash bins trampled
over, reeking tramps, ad nauseam. I am still.

On a porch, where houses are still better off
with them, I sip my minted tea as serenely
as I could, miming the movements of my mind:
if I knew then what I know now, if I loved then
as fiercely as I could have, if I could turn time
around and give it a kick in its arrogant behind,
if I could shelve that rushing sunrise and not
waken to carpenter bees and highway buzzing…

However languid or rushed my mornings are,
does not matter now. Waking up still beats not
getting up or not waking up to another still day.
I am most still when I can feel my shoulders shrug.

—Albert B. Casuga
04-26-11

Poetic Prompt: Thanks to insomnia, I have two mornings: one with ground fog lit by the waning moon at dawn, the other hot and abuzz with carpenter bees.---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 04-26-11 http://www.morningporch.com/