Before dawn each day

I rise

ground the beans,

brew the coffee

that I bring to Pat each day

in her favorite Starbuck’s mug

from Kyoto, Japan given to her

by Aiko K...so of Nara

who will become in November

in Christ Church Kealakekua, Hawaii,

Aiko K...o D...iou, a lovely addition

to our tribe. Each Tuesady, Thursday,

and Sunday in this season

with the aged and blind basset at my side,

I water the flowers

that proffer such superabundance

of disinterested beauty;

I tend the birds virtually every day

whose arrivals

and departures grant such pleasure,

who know why?

I say the prayers and read

the poets. Often I run with my mind filled

with these images from Scripture

and the poems, the colors and the flights.

Most every day I write

something like this. Not important, not particularly

artistic, but a nexus between bird

and flower, metaphor, and Joshua’s trombones,

or Peter’s denial and often dream images

carried over from the night. All of this

I think of this as the discipline

of prayer and doxologies of morning. With the cadence

of the run, it forms a rhythm of its own

and takes on a complex linearity.

Tomorrow

I will sit with Pat

for 3 hours as she is injected through a port

with the poisons so necessary, ironically,

to sustain her life. She’s nearly bald now;

it is very hard; it saddens her, so it saddens me.

She will feel crappy for 5 days,

but miss no work.

Last night my 86 year old mother

had surgery to repair the hip broken

when a grandfather clock fell on her

on Tuesday in her home.

In the ICU of the same New Jersey hospital

my 88 year old uncle who lives with her

is recovering from Monday’s surgery

meant to repair

a blocked bowel. Next week I will drive

there, not sure how much time

I will need to spend. I will stop in

Annapolis to visit my niece, her husband,

and their 2 boys.