Ode to a Mood

I woke up in you, climbed out of bed with you singing in my head, was puzzled by your name—it wasn’t like other mornings, when the sun clobbered the horizon with its white light, with the birds zinging through the trees like little ideas, plans, designs... it was dense and gray, the day wore shadows and hats, the clouds clotted the sun with their puffy, wet cells, there was dark industry... my eyes were sacks of potatoes, my arms were elephants, my mind was a mouse churning in a wheel... what day was this?  Where was my ice-coffee?  My glazed-over caffeinated container?  A car and a drive away... and it’s mine!  Hello, Wednesday—my lover in disguise... your vestments are an electric blue and you speak like a muse... never have I encountered an entity which could so radically repair itself, so indefinitely lay out the winter with its snow-stuffed streets and broad possibilities... Still you percolate in my brain like a driving piston, you are more formed and decorated, with lively fancies and inclinations... you dress my soul with affinities for bagels and long walks, you water seeds of inspiration in me to pounce on my dreams like a cat, to sort through libraries of attitudes and desires with a pair of diligent and dexterous fingers, to understand myself like I know the nose on my face... don’t spoil yourself over the difficulties and obstacles of vocation—the tag we put on ourselves to make us feel more useful or worthwhile... I am a hunter in a strange land of feelings, and perspectives, and landscapes... I put on the day and take off the night like socks, and when the sun has crept off, I drink my art down like a dry martini, I thank you for being you, for without the impetus of temper and spirit we cannot name anything dead or alive in order for it to be useful...