Solitary Morning Glory

I am a solitary morning glory waking with the dawn.

I spent the summer waiting,

and forgot its songs of yellow light;

now the yawning afternoons turn amber

and still my hair is dark.

Tomorrow,

I may rise to greet the morning,

and meet its brilliant eye,

but I’ll be tired by the time the noon sun shines;

too tired to face the road down from

this quiet house upon the hillside,

hidden in the tangle of the yard.

From here outside the world, I watch

time passing far below,

at a distance much too great for me to feel it;

but every day I hope to be the one

it comes to call me back.

So I’ll just open wide the curtains,

and watch the seasons pass

from the chair beside the window facing south,

through slow and silent afternoons

that will fade as I forget.

The dying day leaves dying light

suspended in the dust,

floating softly all around the room like stars.

I will pass the months by counting days,

and pass the years by counting months;

until the day I’ll try to trace

lines etched by time across my face

back to the thoughts I thought when I was young.

The glass will have grown filmy,

and I’ll look for the fragments of my life

in the fragments of broken light

caught in the pane;

caught in the pain

and left behind.

I am a solitary morning glory fading with the day.