One Morning, After Some Time
Morning broke in softly through the curtained window there,
But you aren’t stirring in the gentle yellow light.
Your eyes are open, they opened long before,
When your dreaming left you gasping in the middle of the night,
But your reverie can’t be broken or repaired.
You don’t watch the intruder come creeping and make his presence known,
You don’t lift your head from the pillow to lock eyes with Morning’s might,
But you sense him slowly moving upward in his roost,
And you can feel the soft bright patch from the window on the bareness of your back.
Your mornings are so very listless, tired and drawn out,
You like to drag your feet to see if you can stop the moving of the world,
The ordinary is an intrusion, an affront to your great intellect,
Morning is the Harbinger, Ordinary is strapped to his back.
Your afternoons are ravenous for sunlight and life,
Your long nights are filled with misty sadness and my regret.
In the afternoons and nights you reach out to me,
You take my hand and hold it to your heart or reach over and leave kisses in my hair,
Or you push me away with crossed arms because I’ve forgotten how to let go.
In the afternoons and nights you are definite and equal,
You are the humble savior whom I have clothed with gratitude,
And in return I wear your love,
So why is it that in the mornings you wear a vacant mask?
You lie so high and mighty in your rumpled cotton bed,
And when I seek to loosen your silent burden, you give me apathy,
I often get the feeling that all the ghosts and headless dreams that swarmed the night before,
Lie between us on the mattress like a wall of history.
Is it my weakness that you scorn in your time of weakness,
Is it that, in the mornings, my past conformity disgusts you?
Oh, wait, you’re moving, you send a soft and darkened gaze my way,
You have felt my deliberate study of the back of your neck.
“No, no, I love you, do not think that way,” are your tumbled words,
you have seen my hurting look, we’ve been through it all before,
“You are not my pity case.”
The yellow curtained window is straining with a hearty glow,
Your face is lit with dimness like honey in the light,
You are crawling back from your stupor with apology in your eyes.
Your hand flutters out to me yet I do not feel you,
So I stand up to go make breakfast, and I fling the curtain open as I go.
As the sunlight burns in like fire against your face,
You think, ‘I’m not sorry I brought you here when your world was ashes at your feet,
‘But I’m sorry that I’ve taken your trust three steps too far,’
And you fondly watch the glint in my hair as I leave the room.
*Please tell me what you think. I was reading a lot of Leonard Cohen poetry around the time I wrote this, can you tell?
