Morning Commute
©December 7th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Morning comes too swiftly for my taste
I awake, like a forgotten creature
Rising from a black lagoon,
Torpor and languor suffusing bones
That protest the pull of gravity.
I have the pleasure of working:
Earning that which keeps body and soul
Knit, and assures me of my lowly place
In a world run by money without toil,
A world run by greed without end.
I have the pleasure of playing:
Making music, reading, theatre, walking.
And these keep soul and body knit,
Assuring me of my place in the flow
Where the currents of art and life meet.
There are regrets, yes, and sorrows,
But I do not indulge these anymore.
I shrug, and my sadnesses fall off
My shoulders, a weighty cloak
For which there is no more use.
Speculation is useless, but I still
Play the mental game of “what ifs?”
I imagine branching pathways,
Dead-ends, about-turns, disasters.
I will never know, but I still imagine it.
The answer is in my flight-lines.
A V-shaped flight of geese
Scissor the December sky into two,
And light pours down the fissure.
While streams of cars spill steadily
Onto the highway, arterial and venous.
I join the cars, a corpuscle among corpuscles.
I want to join the geese, scissoring a bright sky.
I open the windows, and sing a loud, low note, and,
For a moment, the wind lifts me aloft; I’m in the air.
Then, my turn signal blinking, my mind laser-sharp,
I swerve into the middle lane, and focus.
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Then, my turn signal blinking, my mind laser-sharp,
I swerve into the middle lane, and focus.
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