Poetry Wednesday; Poetry Pals week #55 - Good Morning

A take on a Mary Oliver Poem

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Good day Red Cabbage Heads,

Back on the train with Nelly at

Poetry Pals

where we looked at a poem by Mary Oliver and Nelly showed us her take on it. It was quite fun to do, not my greatest poetical work I feel though. But it will do.

Photo by Elle Hughes on Unsplash

Good Morning - after Mary Oliver

1.
If  the sun isn’t leeching round the curtain edges 
it’s not morning and I won’t greet it. 
The warm honey light must caress me awake: 
must pour me into the world sticky with sweet sleep,
still eager for more and still eager for the day ahead. 

2.
I watch him sleep, he sleeps so much better than me, 
cosily wrapped in the quilt, his face crumpled from
the years long pull of gravity finally succeeding 
to squash flesh. I often reach to cradle 
his head under my hand, to stroke his hair, 
occasionally to smell his cheek. I 
don’t want to wake him, just drink him in. 

3.
The view out the window changes daily
            and yet is exactly the same. 
Come rain or shine it exists to 
thrill me in every season,
                           in every weather. 

4.
I chose my day’s task carefully. 
There can be only one, 
I grin at the reference.
Today I should wash my hair but I rail against it, 
‘I don’t want to!’ I shout, ‘It’s too hard.’ 
		Really shout.
Thumping my fists into the bed 
like the hoofbeats of a startled foal, 
giddy and with no rhythm. 
It feels good to let it out.
He smiles and hands me a cup of tea. 
‘Don’t then.’ he says. 
		And I don’t. 

5.
I measure heart rate and heart rate variability, 
occasionally blood pressure, 
and use these metrics to inform the day ahead. 
A bit of medical science scattered into a creative day. 
I like science and it’s certain facts, steadying, constant. 
I like art, experimental, flighty, freeing. 

6.
It’s time to move, to ease achy muscles and painful joints
		into a different space.
To partake of the day, to shake the reluctance away, 
like shaking water from the hair I will not wet today. 
I move from yellow to green, from fresh to calming,
		from bed to sofa

7. 
This morning will fade soon, and the 
light will crawl around the room, 
creating rainbows on the walls from
the prisms in the windows. 
Such		delicious, 
	beautiful 
	     startling 
colourful 
		temporary decoration 
like a sign that the day and I will endure
		
		together. 

And there we are. That’s all for this week, ta-ra Tx

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