hot hotel coffee and pipe outside on a crisp morning
keeping company with straw and stars and stripe kitsch 
the colors of October: a canvas stretching 
along the river that frames these days
telling myself it’s a day off, I can breathe a little, drink coffee

going to see old friends soon and buy a few supplies 
every waking is a counting and a reckoning of things needed
every waking is a remembering and planning
every waking is a new realization, a different surprise

that I am closer to the currents of things 
than the day before