Dawn. How many times will my habits spool out this way? The coffee maker yields its sound of a sleeper who doesn’t take a breath for a while, then does.

Outside, I head for the garage to feed the stray cats, and first light brings hints of color back to the garden. Tomatoes, gray a moment ago, are now the vague orange of old Polaroids. Each drop of dew is half lit on feathery cosmos stalks by the gate.

Today it all reminds me of a Japanese tea ceremony. The same careful motions done so many times, in exactly the same way, as to subtract time and make one thing of it all. Yet this day, though blended, remains one of a finite set of days.

The cats mill about my feet, their stripes a fast walk past a picket fence. A lone bird calls from its millennia of the same sound. Anybody? Anybody there? And from far away, an answer.

gratitude
a song for atoms
loaned to me

Bio: Daryl Scroggins