I wrote this early in 2012.

Deep In This Night (Morning?)

Time perverted, I grasped this stress
in me, deep in the night, and I
shook it, shook it and tossed it aside.

No longer my own, deep in this night,
I seized the word and held it so tight,
My knuckles whitened, my face red.

And the snores lulled me to calm,
Softly echoing one side of the room
to the other, and soft gaelic pipes filled me too.

Employed by Christ, I felt it on this plain,
here on this soft, moist, roamy earth,
and tonight for this moment, my employment seemed simple.

Sometimes I have had nothing, sometimes
I have drowned in too much, but
Tonight there is just the right measure,
Time perverted, and stress freed.

(c) Tom Bolton, Milwaukee, January 2012