Harry Calhoun’s most recent poem to appear here was The Other Side of the Bed (May 2014).

Burning a Hole in Daylight
By Harry Calhoun

It feels warm in this latest morning I’ve awakened to,
dreary outside in August but too early to have grown hot.
I keep the lights off because it’s nice here in bed
and as my mom used to say when she was probably
my age and alive, there’s no sense turning on lights

and burning a hole in daylight. I didn’t know I would
grow up dark mornings and old family homilies:
my grandmother’s “there’ll be dishes to do when
we’re all dead and gone.” That , I guess, remains
to be seen. And if we’re all dead and gone, someone

else will have to see it. But I digress. I guess this
is a poem about waking up and the weather,
what we all take for granted, and old family sayings.
My father, a wise if simple man, used to say: “It’s hell
being ignorant,” and I have spent my life if not to make

my way to heaven but to stay out of hell by keeping
my wits about me. It feels warm this morning.
Thoughts of the past and these old strange sayings
are burning a hole in my early daylight.