Most mornings are not clear.
Most mornings are not the type with a
ten-state view from the top of
Clingman's Dome, and two very expensive
tanks of gasoline. You're welcome.

No, most mornings are battered
by some kind of weather condition -
rains and drizzles and nebulous fogs,
unhappy bedmates, a productive cough -
or else the sun just remits,
stays dozing until it has slept enough.

Then you get that gray sky-
chalkboard, the punitive slap of
humid cold on your early walks, your
coffee rendezvous. Then you have
too many garments at 3 because you put
on extra at 8. Morning, in short,
wishes you ill.

Be aware that if you were born
this century, you lurched into no
midwife's hands, full of love and wet, but
a surgeon's, gloved and powdery,
who spanked you firmly, knocked you
down with a commanding stare, and gave you
the first of many cuts you were to receive.

But for having woken up, let's say,
on the wrong side of the bed (if
even there's a right one), I would
like to think we've done alright,
are not too warm or upset at midday,
not too disappointed in ourselves, our moments
of astounding social gracelessness
that we leave like bits of sneaker in our wake.

Still, though, a question:
where grows happiness? Where sprouts
the silver trunk, the cypress or birch? Or
ficus or orange or ginkgo biloba? Tell me.
I would tap that tree 'til it withers, and die
under its trunk, and the two very expensive
tanks of gasoline it took
to get me where I am.