It is early.
The sky stretches above the mountains
–pale, white, untouched–
a question unanswered:
What will we make of today?
It is too early for thoughts.
The sun itself has barely opened its eyes.
Only the toddler is noisy and cheerful
as he munches the insisted-upon breakfast:
peanut butter sandwiches at the break of dawn.”Num!”
Some days
when you’ve been up and down all night
with coughing kids,
giving medicine and fruit smoothie,
rubbing Vicks on hot little backs,
tucking and retucking in,
the only thing to do
when they mysteriously get up extra early,
before the decent hour of 7 am,
is to start the day afresh
with Frootloops for once—
very healthy with all that ‘froot’—
and “The best breakfast ever,”
according to my three year old.
Maybe smiling will help the bad bugs go away.
Just East Of Crazy Land 