A Typical Day

What to say
about today
when it’s just like
any other day — I

wake early.
Feed cat, drink tea.
Eat things as needed.
Read and

write,
and write, and write; in fact,
all the rest of the things I do
simply support the doing of
that. You might say
that on any given day
I’m a writer, it’s what
I am. What I do.
Any day I have,
is that day.

Somewhere in the ink
there’s another kind of day hiding
where I might be able to lay
off for a day, but I haven’t found it
yet. I write toward it
every day.

And yes, I make love now and then,
more then than now; and yes
I leave the house
and buy things now and then,
more now than then; love and
am loved, speak and am spoken to,
cry at appropriate times, laugh
when things are funny enough,

and close at hand always a guitar
as a break from everything else;
yeah, that’s a typical day —

and it goes on deep into the typical night.

But always, the writing
sits bedrock below it all;
cap on a magma flow
that burns and shines and steams.

A typical day
is about trying
to set that fire
like a gem
into dull metal.