October Morning
It’s never this dreary in a dream –
raining cold and leaves down,
a slow moving mood finally
coming to life, its weight pulling
us, staggering us under its heaviness,
trudging to work, the walls closing
around us, building up inside us.
This is the very stuff of novels
ponderous heavy Russian novels.
The ones you read years ago and
remember only as dim lit rooms
and open spaces clouded and
crowded with a history you barely
understand or care to know.
Weather like this would make even
philosophers blush and poets recall
their troubled youths. Skies this low
shrink mountains and egos, laundry
and lunatics. Time as gray as today
cuts conversations in half, one voice
answering, then questioning itself.
A day like this is as promising as
a late night phone call, as hopeless
a drunk’s promise. A day like this,
when we think of it, summarizes too
much of our lives, lives we’ve spent
so unwisely, lives we’ve spent so,
so that this bleak October morning
seems something like home.
J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Up the River, Decades Review, Third Wednesday, and Common Ground Review.