Morning as Verb

Your dreams are restless ones.
Always a new place. Some of them real
making the transition from sleep to wakefulness
difficult. For a few moments, sometimes longer
you are not certain where or when you are.
Reality feels uncertain. tenuous.

You wake to a battle between worlds,
between truth and depression,
between color palettes and moods,
your legs out in the cold.
Your body in warmth under the quilt.
Some mornings you surrender to the dreams,
but you can never surrender
to the reality of depression. Unchecked,
it is too powerful.

So it is that you throw the covers aside.
“It’s showtime,” you declare
like a ringmaster or presario
in front of the stagelights.
Never mind you are alone.
Never mind what you feel,
There is a battle to be won or lost,
all in these first few moments.
Work to be done if you are to be fit
for the world you live in
as the sun comes over the quarry, souls
to be saved, primarily yours,
for one more day.

About this poem.

Mornings are hard. Depression is real. The battle is every morning. The battle is mostly won, but not without the confusion of battlefields everywhere. Many of you know, and I salute you, fellow warriors, all.

The photograph was taken at the quarry just across from my house in West Pawlet, Vermont.

Be well. Travel wisely.

Tom

Books By Tom Atkins