Sunday, May 15, 2005

Morning

When the day’s first light
Shines down the hall
And the smell of coffee
Dances into the room,
My mind gently stirs
Beneath the weight of the morning.
I rise and,
With robe holding in the night’s warmth
Shuffle toward the sounds in the kitchen
Where I know you’ll be.
You always are.

Before there was you,
Morning came rudely…
Little more than a beginning of
Just another day.
The memory of its incivility
Is now thankfully filtered by
Time and distance.

When you came,
Morning seemed to take on
A new meaning.
No longer a blurry inconvenience
But the start of another chapter
In a book with no ending.

And yet…

That was the smell of coffee
Wasn’t it?
I could have sworn…
Yet as I draw closer
The aroma seems to fade.
And the light from the hallway
Now appears to be
Little more than a dusky illusion.
The sounds of the morning
And your stirring
Now fading into a
Most profound quiet.
The night rushing back
To fill the empty space.

A mental mirage, all of it.
Perhaps a self-deceptive facade
conjured by the part of the mind
which fears the stillness
Of solitude.

How long have you
Been gone now?
It seems like yesterday,
And yet
Like a million years.

I thought you’d still be here...
You always were.



This poem stumbled out of my head a few days ago, inspired by current personal events... but in a moment of epiphany I realized it could have been channeled from the ghost of my Grandmother. I'm certain the words appropriately represent the way she felt after Grandpa's death, they were definitely morning people.


***

2 comments:

OldHorsetailSnake said...

You know you are making Ol' Hoss cry, don't you?

Anonymous said...

I wish I had the ability to write like that! Wow! I FELT the words deep deep down inside.