Waking Up Before Dawn With Miesha

Miesha moves
willingly from my desk to 
the tray table. I quickly
set up the laptop
before she changes her mind.

I don’t have much space these days
in which to find peace. She seems
to know a secret about how to do it 
that I do not. Narrow her world,
find rest in a narrower place:

cat wisdom. The poems
keep on narrowing as does
what I can see of where I live:
poet wisdom. The cat seems content,
as I do not. What I want

is not paradise, not hell;
not even a good night’s rest,
really. What I want is some sense
of a wider possibility than this. A desk
that has room to offer everything I want

whenever I want it.
I struggle with the phrase,
“To everything there is a season.”
Miesha sleeps facing the window
regardless of the season. Maybe

that is the entirety of the secret:
sleep where you can, when you can. 
Take what you are given,
stay ready for what may come; outside
the birds are waking up, after all.