Finish each day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
You start with the basics,
the edges of yesterday
that need to be cut,
snippets of dreamscape
that melt upon waking
when the welcomed towhee
twitters, but then newly
wheeled-in guard dogs
in the canyon begin barking.
You rise wanting to kill them
for breaking the morning,
for not being coyotes
who denned there for years
before the tin-shacked goat
ranch with chain-link fences
and decorative peacocks.
But back to the project
of planning a tolerable day;
reinforcements of coffee
and aspirin jumpstart
your bloodstream, bring on
an attitude; it’s all about
gratitude and stamina
in an overstimulating
world, all about finding
a reason to embrace it,
to put your arms around
an imperfect zeitgeist,
smile, make eye contact
with strangers, ignore
politics, be positive, live
before you decide not to.
