It goes without saying,
though I say it anyway,
it goes without saying
there is a ritual to morning
and noon and night (it goes
without saying)

that keeps me
grounded, if that is
the right word (it is,
it goes without blah blah
blah, why keep saying it
when it is so obvious) for it,

whether there is a purpose to it
or not; perhaps there is but
I have forgotten it, forgotten it
long ago — it went without saying
farewell, without a word — I had
a series of storms in my head
and afterward all was reordered,
was forgotten and maybe
forgiven —

at any rate
this morning I woke early
as I do every damn morning
but —

I did a new thing,
I played my guitar before doing
anything else, played it in
a new tuning, a kind of open
tuning, it gave me ideas,
gave me a structure

and it goes,
it goes without saying (of course
it does, why speak of it otherwise,
why let it come forth at all) that
I put the guitar back on its stand
and sat back, somewhat smug
that I had broken the ritual, had
been a new thing for five minutes;

this is how I felt,
this new thing
must be a tiny bit
of how someone’s god
must feel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T