A Different Witching Hour
       

What my friend calls it, different
from the one at home that comes
in the silence after midnight
when everyone is asleep
and I am awake in ways
I couldn't have sustained earlier—
to admire the look of moonlight
on stones in the back yard,
the precise light from near stars,
owls in my quiet street.

Now, I look at the cell phone whose time
refuses to adjust past the last
landing in the Midwest. I am
six hours plus whatever it says,
which means dinnertime at home,
so I rise and eat a lovely long pear
left in my room, a kindness
for travelers. On the train into town
I asked a man from California
and he added eight hours
to the face of his watch.

In a few days I will be five hours
earlier, one later than the time
on my phone, two later than home.
And I wonder, at this hour, what time
it will be: time to run, time to feed
the body, which time this time.

Tweet

Copyright © 2018 Tami Haaland All rights reserved
from What Does Not Return
Lost Horse Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission