Just a simple girl with a simple heart
Trying to hold the pieces of the morning together
So that they do not fall apart.

The way the ocher light filters through
The bare limbs of early spring
And casts a faint glow upon the hardwood floor
Where my cat curls into herself and sleeps
And the steam lifts from my coffee cup
And the distant highway purrs.

Ridges thick with pines line the horizon
And somewhere a northern train trundles the endless tracks,
Sings into the wide, Dakota sky
And calls the dwindling stars out to die against the light of dawn.

I hold my own
Here in this western valley where these reckless dreams are reborn,
Laptop open, words upon the page,
Three little children not yet awake.

Will I keep them safe

If I speak these truths into the emergence of the sun,

If I spill this simple love across a blank slate?