He Gets Up In the Mornings

He gets up in the mornings
And he tries to find a way
To make the day get going--the
Day get going within the day.

He puts on yesterday's shirt and
Yesterday's socks, yesterday's
Trousers and yesterday's shoes
He puts them on so he does something,
Then he puts on yesterday's news.

The day, it happens anyway,
Even when he stays in bed,
Using cigarettes and coffee and liquor and pills
To make something happen in his head.

He rides the subway to work
In other people's houses
Feeling lucky for each dime;
He works for food and survival and feels
Grateful for the expanse of time.

Because he finds that time is large,
So much smaller than he thought,
And it moves in kinds of increments
What are different than he was taught.

He lives with time, inside time, for
Time, and through time, though time is
Not a place, a space, a kind of thing,
Or thing, it seems to him that it is a something
And a something with a sting.

Yet time has no feelings, is not
Impatient, and doesn't want;
Time is a sort of nothing
Like a kind of overflowing font

Of nothing, without fear or anger,
Both too much and far too little,
is what time seems to be,
Time is time is time is time
Is what time seems to me.


L. Steve Schmersal, He Gets Up in the Mornings, May 2014.