Once in a while I have to be up and out early, to go to the medical clinic and, sleepy as I am, I wonder about the people in the houses I pass. Who are they? What are they doing? What are their lives?
one light goes on
in a dark house
gulls swoop to a roof-ridge
crows circle in the gloom
a dog noses the ditch
another light
and I imagine
a sleepy arm stretch
to turn off the alarm
people getting up
taking a grip on the day
waking children
packing lunches
making coffee
home from night-shift
going to bed
as I pass fasting
for a blood test
A Summer Father … terse, imagistic lines; … It’s not nostalgia that we experience but quiet, poignant grief. Richard Stevenson
I wonder the same things on my way to an early-morning hockey practise at 5-something o’clock. “Who are these people? They don’t have hockey! Why are they up? Seriously, what are they up?”