Late Morning, Front Porch

 

The sun is beginning to mean it now —

the way it lays itself across the metal roof

like a hand that will not be moved,

like a fever that decides.

I am in the chair beneath the shade.

I am having coffee.

I am, for once, only that.

The trees at the edge of the yard

have made up their minds about green.

Not the shy green of last week,

the tentative, apologetic green —

this is the green that says here,

this is the green that crowds out the question.

I do not know what is blooming in the weeds.

I do not know the proper names

of the vines that have decided the fence belongs to them now,

of the flowers opening their small, unasked mouths

in the unmowed wild of it all.

It does not matter.

They are yellow and white and climbing

and the bumblebees are heavy with something

I can only call purpose.

The yellow butterflies are lighter than purpose.

They are pure movement. They are the day

practicing being beautiful

without trying.

Birdsong fills the early of it —

the early of the day —

that phrase I love

because morning still has its membrane intact,

still holds the night's permission

to be unscheduled, unhurried,

not yet handed over to the hours.

I am sitting in the chair.

This is the whole poem.

This is the whole confession:

that I sat down

and did not immediately stand back up.

That the coffee grew warm in my hands

and then less warm

and the sun moved

and the bees did not consult me

and the vines grew a little longer

and I was here

in the way I have been trying to learn —

not watching myself be here,

not writing the moment in my head while it happens,

not already elegizing the light —

just in it.

Stacy, in her chair.

The metal roof heating up.

The green deciding.

The butterflies doing what butterflies do

in a world that does not require her to explain herself.

I am sitting on the porch.

I am having coffee.

I just am.

For once, I just am.