My every morning feels
Like every other morning.
Routine makes it so.
Groundhog Morning,
Again and again.
My sense of time distorted.
Calendars turn. Notepads thin.
Manga progress many chapters.
Yet every morning feels
Like every other morning.
An atom on a transverse wave.
Up and down at the same spot
Though the wave moves on.

The ice cube in my Rasna glass
Has had its revenge on me
For all the stirring, blowing,
Sucking, plopping I did
To make it turn and twirl
To my whims and wishes
As it slowly melted away,
Water to water. As I now do
Into the world I am made of.

I’m fortunate, though, in getting
To escape that drama every day
For a few hours in the morning.
A few hours in which I see
A poem written, a page read,
A chess position analysed,
A new language wrestled with,
A few thoughts set aside,
A deep insecurity encountered,
A deeper motivation found,
A clock whose every clucking tick
Sounds like every other tick,
A morning that feels, once again,
Like every other morning.