The Ancient Modern
Letter / Joshua Alan Sturgill
I always think at night tomorrow
I will sit down before
a clean piece of paper, pen in hand
to write you everything. I fall
asleep with perfect phrases gathering
in my mind’s ear I insist I won’t
forget. I always think at dawn
I’ll compose with the fresh freedom
every imagined tomorrow
gives so generously to the burnt
rush of today. They were all so lilting
among the noise, those words!
So fetching among the pallid clutter
of my sleepy mind! And in the morning,
I do remember them just as I promised.
But they pale in the daylight.
And I can’t find stamps. The pen
hovers aimless over the page,
and the once-empty sky now bears
ten thousand birds of urgency
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