Death seems less likely in the morning
when you wake, if that’s what we do,
in a new day, if that’s what it is,
but all this hinges on Time, doesn’t it?
And not even physicists or philosophers
agree on what Time is and if it’s really
necessary to anything except Death
which is the limit everything flows to
yet nobody understands.
If I remembered to set the timer
on the coffee pot last night, and remembered
to replace the paper filter
and fill it with fresh ground coffee,
those fine dark brown grains of sand,
I’ll wake looking forward to what I smell
rather than regretting again
how I failed and what I lost.
Everything depends on whether I made coffee.
Stan Sanvel Rubin
Stan Sanvel Rubin, retired educator, lives in Port Townsend WA. Four full length collections include There. Here. and Hidden Sequel (Barrow Street Poetry Book Prize).