Kaspa writes: I often struggle first thing in the mornings. The part of my brain that wakes up first is an older, animal part, grumpy and unwilling to face the sunlight. I try to have patience with other people’s perkiness as I wait for the rest of my brain to wake up.
This morning was a classic example. I woke early, as the sunlight started to creep though the curtains, and spent the next couple of hours drifting in and out of sleep, vaguely unconscious even in the wakeful moments.
I was completely asleep when the alarm went off, and cried out as it pulled me from the depths of my dream. Eventually I stumbled downstairs and put the kettle on. Whilst the water was boiling I stepped in to the freshly spring-cleaned conservatory.
Sunshine streamed through the windows, the houseplant (that I don’t know the name of) looked much perkier after being watered yesterday and on the table was Being Human, the most recent anthology from Neil Astley. My mind full of thoughts of waking up, and how grumpy I can be in the mornings, I opened the anthology at random and read Dawn Revisited by Rita Dove…
Dawn Revisited
Imagine you wake up
with a second chance: the blue jay
hawks his pretty wares
and the oak still stands, spreading
glorious shade. If you don’t look back,the future never happens.
How good to rise in sunlight,
in the prodigal smell of biscuits -
eggs and sausage on the grill.
The whole sky is yoursto write on, blown open
to a blank page. Come on,
shake a leg! You’ll never know
who’s down there, frying those eggs,
if you don’t get up and see.Rita Dove
A beautiful poem which speaks for itself. Reading those few words completely changed my attitude this morning and reminded me – How good to rise in sunlight!
(…I want to shoehorn a reference in to the Eastern Therapeutic Writing Course that I’m running August here as well somehow. Something about using poems to help us see the world more clearly (we look at writing waka on the the course). Perhaps I won’t mention it until I write something about the massive spring-clean we’ve been doing here and the importance, as Dr Morita said, of taking care of your surroundings….)
Happy writing, everyone!
