Coffee, dark in the dark morning
soothing my throat of sleep’s work
in the shadows of the cold room.

My enjoyment sleepily ceased,
of this waking dream, I sit aching
from yesterdays forgotten exertions.

Birds, flowing in their sky-patterns
using air as their darkness, they live
in the shadows of the breeze.

One lands on a gutter and slips
into a drainpipe, scraping the walls –
impacts the dark stone and rots.

It struggles to leave, constrained –
eyes at the perfect level for worms –
it cries shortly, immobile, waiting.

Speculations on how to be freed
from this dispersing life, aided
to spark once again, in the night.