Gloaming Gustari

image borrowed from bing

Gloaming Gustari

“The early morning has gold in its mouth.”

--Benjamin Franklin

For several years I rose bleary-eyed

and resolute to the eerie sounds

of soft silence being pierced by 

night birds squawking, flying

wing to wing with the bats,

and the lonesome barking of dogs;

struggling into the pre-twilight, wrapped

in striped muffler and navy-blue watch-cap,

having to wipe the steam from my spectacles

before hearing the evening’s freeze crackle

as I forced my car door open, the sonorous

screech of a blood-red ice scraper clearing

the windshield, the blinded rear-view mirrors,

and the driver’s window;

serenaded by classical music while shivering

in wait for the engine to percolate the radiator tea

and add purpose to the whoosh of defroster

on a windshield trying to re-form its icy mask;

sliding into gear, headlights on bright, breaking

the myriad of frozen sheets on puddles, emerging

at the head of the alley to make my familiar way

down quiet frosted streets, past dark houses

and slumbering occupants, out onto the wide

nearly empty stretch of freeway, allowing

me to drive faster, deep into the icy arms

of thick brown fog, past the district fenced lot

full of pencil-yellow school buses;

soon arriving at work, hiking 

from the empty parking stalls

across a wide stretch of tall firs 

throwing patchwork shadows 

for me to scurry through, 

past several buildings 

pale white from a harvest moon, 

it’s silver beams dancing on my breath

as I unlocked a side door and let myself

into a dimly-lit long hallway leading to

my office, where my government computer

hummed good morning, ready for

my exploration,

my excursions on line, 

my research, 

my poetry, 

spending several delicious hours 

before other employees

arrived at their duty stations, 

before sweet old blinded veterans 

would gather at my door needing 

my expertise, attention,

and compassion;

later even while mired in teaching, deep

in some technical explication, still

I savored the cached residue of joy

that remained within, the result

of being up before the dawn,

sailing like a solitary sailor 

on a sargasso cyber-sea

smiling leeward just before 

the new sun poked its fiery pate

above the awaiting fecund horizon-

greeting it boldly, more

than prepared for the

carpe diem,

quam minimum credula postero.

Glenn Buttkus

February 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets--Poetics

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