I awaken to sunset’s orange glow approaching,
or perhaps it is sunrise battling clouds.
Is that window the East or West?
Without my eyeglasses, the desk lamp glows
like the Sun, but it feels night.
The clock hands say seven without AM/PM
and my brain cannot sense time or
whether I am right side up or
adrift at sea, waves lift and fall,
my head hot and my feet cold.
I scribbled some notes when I woke up and felt like my fever had lifted. The notes didn’t make much sense but I did recall the confusion about time and the feeling that I was at sea.
A few days later, I was flipping through a poetry anthology and came upon “The Walrus and the Carpenter” by Lewis Carroll and these lines seemed just right.
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright —
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
Writing the Day 