Sleep moves with visions of events to come
and with stories and poems I’ve yet to write –
with gardens I dream to plant and songs
that never sang themselves before

Sometimes I meet myself in different incarnations
child, youth, young mother, wizened crone

 Then morning comes gently 

in soft refrains

“Rise and Shine”

The freshness of daybreak peeks in through blinds
Breezes stroke the shears with familiar affection
Ears spark to the rhythm of the rain on the roof or
the prattle of birds in trees and on telephone wires

I hear the bell at St. Joe’s … I wonder ~
then realize I’m no longer a schoolgirl
From someplace in time comes the baby’s murmur,
but that gift is grown and gone now
I reach for the man and with relief remember
he’s another woman’s Sisyphean task
The cat, I move to pull her languid plumpness
into the cuddle of my arms but her dust
sits in a wooden box on my night table

Slowly now

slowly

I orient to time and place

The good Yesterday is stored in mothballs
The bright Tomorrow is a hope chest

Today has arrived

nature’s reset button

I rise and do shine in the spirit of my several selves
I stretch and yawn my way into this emerging
What unimagined adventures will come  
with this new sun and newer me? 

© 2015, poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved