Morning Loop

I must acknowledge this pond.
The light on the water
is so creamy it looks silky.
No wind, some ratchety cricket sounds,
a group of low warbling toads, and the sudden hiss
of rubber on a rough country road
from a car in the distance.
And then this: what do I call this?
Just an emptying of the agitation of the city,
the movement of things around me coming
to a stop long enough to position
myself in front of some water on a canvas
camping chair, low to the wooden floor
of this screened in porch.
My bare toes rub on the tiny gaps
between the dry, matte-gray planks.
The sound of children's voices from another house
through the woods as they wake up
to look at the same view as me. Perhaps their shrieks
are simple exultations from seeing the endless
possibilities of a summer day.
It could be said that I have not more than
twenty years to live if I hold to the averages
of a man's life in this country,
as calculated by actuarial scientists who
get paid enormous sums to determine such things
for insurance companies who turn their conjectures
into cash money. I should remember that,
and these days, layered one on top of another
until there's nothing but a mound of bland years,
not so tall, not so profound, just a lump of time
amid many other lumps of time. We're all screwed, but so what?
Time is all we really have, any of us, or so they say.
But really, I must mention this calm pond,
these enormous pines and the sound of some birds
waking up near me. All the rhythms evolving,
weaving in and out of the flow of this day,
so simple, so calm, so fleeting.