March 5, 2012

There is the least bit of light at this hour, enough for you to imagine you can see the trees.  Soon that beautiful cobalt will be easing in, taking over the world for its brief glory.  Cars are rounding the corner, people headed to work, because what else would you do at this hour but that!  If you didn't have to go, you would still be in bed with dreams or snuggles.

I often wonder if all this yawning we do in the morning is because we are sleepy, because we forget to breathe deep, or because we refuse to believe it's time to get up and get moving.  There is something to be said for being a morning person, but even in that case, sometimes mornings come too early.

This early my mind is not up to anything philosophical, and I often wonder why we are so full of questions, even if we don't really need the answers, the questions remain.

Humans
             "a brief and strange species"
                        —W.S. Merwin

the day begins in disarray
you ought you should you must you
must you must you must 
the bees will not be stilled
what stitches mind
to body      who
cues the unraveling
if it's true
we're infused
with something not found
in doorknob bird or bee
why am I confused
about all the important things
crows trampoline the power lines
from house to house      they don't care
who runs the world
I gape at the sky
color of sunflower      color of blood
the world is not
as I have believed it to be
I find no vantage point no long
view across even the surface
peristalsis propels the worm
into darkness electricity
animates the lamp
the leaf drinks
at the top of the tree
I understand none
of the beautiful things
the sparrow bathes in dirt
I don't know why
the birds do not ask themselves
or each other how are we
to live      they do not
ask us to love them

Elizabeth Austen

I too gape at the sky but mine is just beginning to turn the deepest blue, the one step up from black.  I hear no crows this morning but some bird with the "chew, chew, chew, chew" song just woke up and sounds slow and sleepy.   The crows trampoline the power lines, I have not seen so many crows that I could say they do that, though I have seen grackles in flocks so grand they make the power lines sag then bounce when they take flight.  They make the weirdest electronic whistles, you think somewhere inside them is some small circuit board making their whistles and beeps.

Time to go, the day begins, not so much in disarray, but in routine and reluctance.  When the sun comes up, I hope for clear light and wish you a morning full of its shine.