december 15

clear and thrity-four at 6 a.m.

An old moon, lying akilter

amoung a few pale stars,

and so quite on the road

I can hear every gone in my body

hefting some part of me

over its shoulder.  Behind me,

my shadow stifles a cough

as it tries to keep up,

for I have set out fast and hard

against this silence,

filling my lungs with hope

on this, my granddaughter’s

birthday, her first, and the day

of my quarterly cancer tests. 

ted kooser | winter morning walks:  one hundred postcards to Jim Harrison