November 20, 2012

The sky has come closer, grayed with a light fog slowly lifting, the trees so still you'd think they were a painting.  Great swatches of yellow and gold now light up the trees, and the red berries quietly turn black on the vine.  A dozen small birds, gray in this light, fly through the thin branches of the crepe myrtle, rest a moment, and are gone with rustle, vanished in a flip of wings.  Morning moves through the yard, the light more subtle because it has lost its brightness to the overcast, but still making shadows and spots of gold, the shimmer of a spider web with one leaf caught in it, twirling on a thread.

I think morning must be my favorite time of day, when everything seems fresh and anything is possible.

Morning

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on expresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on expresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.

Billy Collins

I can see him buzzing around the house on expresso, and though I usually only have one cup of coffee, I am glad to have that one to sharpen my brain for the morning work.  The dictionary and the atlas are now the Internet, and it's the keyboard waiting for the key of the head, and Dessa on the Ipod, but still the same essence, just a difference in the particulars.  But we both have the window and the trees and the clouds, we both seem to like the movement of the morning, the newness of it, the possibilities inherent in starting again.  Though the kids are all night people, I'm not sure where they get that, and I am sure they would tell lovely tales of the night blooming with its many-pointed stars, I will take the morning, and the early light changing instant by instant into something brighter.