Anyone with the tendency to wake up
With a sense of dread when and only when
Sleep was good and the morning without
Alarm will understand that I was not afraid
Because I had every good reason to be
Afraid, ashamed and filled with dread, but
Because I had slept well and slept in
On a day when I could. Sun in the borrowed
Bedroom, darkness in the debtor's thoughts.
This world a loaner is. The light, that light
Common in southeastern Utah, sharp
And dusty as new-mined diamonds,
Announced a new day never done before,
Same old probabilistic universe, same
Old fiction of a continuous life and self.
Time to make the bed and go to Arches,
Revisit the precarious balancing acts
Of ever-eroding formations of lifeless rocks.
Mustard and onion sandwich, handed over
After daughter ate out greens and turkey,
Chocolate and scotch, just a sip, for desert,
Then leaned out, back into the sun, out
Of sight from the trailhead parking lot,
And peered up a liquefied-looking wall
Of dissolving sandstone, in front of my nose.
Midday in paradise for the midlife disaster.
How long could body keep asking self
How long for body and self to be asking?
The parking lot raven detoured into junipers
To check out the possibilities I might offer.
I offered it nothing but my silent appreciation
Of its jackhammer beak, gleaming black
Feathers and confidence. You, friend,
I thought, basking in the sand and duff,
Are on a short lease of your own, but
There'll be no sin for you in leaving.
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