Day 133 | Marathon by E. Ethelbert Miller

Marathon
E. Ethelbert Miller

it’s a strange time which finds me jogging

in early morning

the deadness of sleep alive in this world

the empty parks filled with unloved strangers

buildings grey with solitude

now near the end of another decade

i am witness to the loss of my twenties

a promise invisible

i run without purpose

far from the north star

i run with the sound of barking dogs closing in

i have lost count of the miles

i am older and nothing much matters

or has changed

Day 93 | Windchime by Tony Hoagland

Day 93 | Windchime by Tony Hoagland

Day 22 | A Letter in October by Ted Kooser

Day 31 | A Letter in October by Ted Kooser

Day 93 | Windchime by Tony Hoagland

Windchime
Tony Hoagland

She goes out to hang the windchime

in her nightie and her work boots.

It’s six-thirty in the morning

and she’s standing on the plastic ice chest

tiptoe to reach the crossbeam of the porch,

 

windchime in her left hand,

hammer in her right, the nail

gripped tight between her teeth

but nothing happens next because

she’s trying to figure out

how to switch #1 with #3.

 

She must have been standing in the kitchen,

coffee in her hand, asleep,

when she heard it—the wind blowing

through the sound the windchime

wasn’t making

because it wasn’t there.

 

No one, including me, especially anymore believes

till death do us part,

but I can see what I would miss in leaving—

the way her ankles go into the work boots

as she stands upon the ice chest;

the problem scrunched into her forehead;

the little kissable mouth

with the nail in it.

Day 31 | A Letter in October by Ted Kooser

A Letter in October
Ted Kooser

Dawn comes later and later now,

and I, who only a month ago

could sit with coffee every morning

watching the light walk down the hill

to the edge of the pond and place

a doe there, shyly drinking,

then see the light step out upon

the water, sowing reflections

to either side—a garden

of trees that grew as if by magic—

now see no more than my face,

mirrored by darkness, pale and odd,

startled by time. While I slept,

night in its thick winter jacket

bridled the doe with a twist

of wet leaves and led her away,

then brought its black horse with harness

that creaked like a cricket, and turned

the water garden under. I woke,

and at the waiting window found

the curtains open to my open face;

beyond me, darkness. And I,

who only wished to keep looking out,

must now keep looking in.

Day 34 | Morning by Billy Collins

Day 53 | Morning by Billy Collins.

Day 17 | Sunday Morning (excerpt) by Wallace Stevens

Sunday Morning (excerpt)
Wallace Stevens

I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

And the green freedom of a cockatoo

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark

Encroachment of that old catastrophe,

As a calm darkens among water-lights.

The pungent oranges and bright, green wings

Seem things in some procession of the dead,

Winding across wide water, without sound.

The day is like wide water, without sound,

Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet

Over the seas, to silent Palestine,

Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?

What is divinity if it can come

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

In any balm or beauty of the earth,

Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Divinity must live within herself:

Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

All pleasures and all pains, remembering

The bough of summer and the winter branch.

These are the measures destined for her soul.

Day 53 | Morning by Billy Collins

Morning
Billy Collins

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 espresso—

 

maybe a splash of water on the face,

a palmful of vitamins—

but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

 

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.