Back Porch Good Morning<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sensuous aroma of coffee wakes me.<\/p>\n
Black smoothness, warm, delicious.<\/p>\n
I can feel it, hot, going down.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sunlight pierces my eyelids,<\/p>\n
familiar stab, hinting at the coming migraine.<\/p>\n
Careful.<\/em><\/p>\n I clench my eyes shut<\/p>\n and turn my chair away from the rays.<\/p>\n Better now.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Seeing without looking,<\/p>\n I know the trees are happy.<\/p>\n How could they not be happy,<\/p>\n with a thousand trills of birdsong in their hair?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The gardenia is showing off again,<\/p>\n smiling from every blossom,<\/p>\n though I cannot see them from here.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no fragrance quite like gardenia<\/p>\n mixed with morning dew.<\/p>\n Gardenias never travel incognito.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And Shisa\u2019s here, pressing<\/p>\n her warm muzzle into my hand,<\/p>\n saying good morning and that<\/p>\n she still loves me.<\/p>\n Eyes still closed, I bend and kiss<\/p>\n the top of her orange head<\/p>\n while she licks my fingers.<\/p>\n We both enjoy a small brain squishy,<\/p>\n then she wanders off the porch to the grass,<\/p>\n heeding Mother Nature\u2019s call.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I put my bright blue coffee mug down<\/p>\n on the white plastic table and stretch \u2013<\/p>\n a long, delicious, gentle stretch \u2013<\/p>\n arms out, legs out.<\/p>\n I could stretch a mile,<\/p>\n but I\u2019d hate to have to walk back.<\/p>\n I settle for half a mile.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then I reach for my black-and-white plaid journal<\/p>\n and my pen.<\/p>\n Open it to where the green ribbon is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And the day has officially begun.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s going to be a good one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can sense it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back Porch Good Morning Sensuous aroma of coffee wakes me. Black smoothness, warm, delicious. I can feel it, hot, going down. Sunlight pierces my eyelids, familiar stab, hinting at the coming migraine. Careful. I clench my eyes shut and turn my chair away…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1150,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66594,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66563\/revisions\/66594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}