Variations on a horizon

These days we awaken a little further from the sun. The clocks changed, they say, minutes lost. While outside my third floor bedroom window, I swear, the view’s the same. The same slanted rooftops and tip of telephone pole. The same starlings on the wire jockeying for position. The same swathe of sky that fools me into thinking I’m near a seashore.

Still, it does feel a little harder getting out of bed these mornings. Harder to leave the plaid comforter and puzzling crossword behind. The toothbrush, even the floss feeling a little heavier. The mirror’s fog a little more difficult to face.

And yet, blessed is that toothbrush and its toothpaste, and the toilet paper too. Blessed the starlings and telephone pole and unseen beaches. Blessed my wife, already up and downstairs, and our daughter in a different city. Blessed that same indifferent sun, inching across the windowpane.

Blessed is the stairwell and each step down I must watch now. Blessed the brewed coffee and teaspoon. Blessed the awaiting paper on the front stoop, though its print may prove a little wet with dew and its news will surely stain.

Standing there at the open door I’ll catch another angle of that slice of sky, now clearly landlocked behind trembling treetops. Certain leaves lost and clearly autumn in Pittsburgh now. A new chill in the air, enough so that I’ll take pause before going on, and grab myself a jacket. The one with the torn lapel.