September 25, 2023 – A

Dawns can be just this way
if we give them a chance.
I haven't seen a dawn of any variety
since well before we moved to Blakeney.

Not that I haven't been up before dawn.

That happens nearly every day.
But I don't leave the house.
I make coffee and sit down to write.

I'm made for writing and photographing.
My knees have made photographing difficult enough
for me to be happy sitting with a tin mug 
of coffee and writing for a while.

I'm good for the right word 
at the right time
in the right place
and the right way.

It's my shtick.

But spelling is not.
Nor are numbers.
So, I don't get far away
from being at home 
with my coffee and my shtick.
Looking forward to being bald.

To be bald,
I'm going to have to outlive my wife.
Until then, I'll be happy
imagining being bald.

Being bald, for me, is a defiant protest,
renunciation, rejection, repudiation,
renouncement, and abrogation
of the ways things are being done
everywhere I look.

Being bald, for me, is immolation on the order
of Buddhist monks in Vietnam,
only I get to keep breathing
and enjoying my putdown of what it's all come to.

Protest is all that is left to us.
That and the power to put things right
insofar as we are able
by doing small things
like choosing the right word
and using it at the right time,
in the right place
and the right way,
while enjoying our coffee and our shtick.

So, if you shave your head before me,
know that I'm coming along
and will get there as I am able.

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