The Bluff

It is December, early morning,

As I stand on the shore of a New Year,

Looking out at fog-bound water,

The city I live in, the land as I have known it,

All veiled behind frost and vapor.

Certainty is a funny thing,

It is ours to find -- emphatically,

And I have found it, on a bluff,

Overlooking the train yards and highways,

And fog-bound everything.

This early hour, this air – made heavy by water,

The thinly-veiled city,

It is, perhaps, not the rarest combination.

And I have suspected that this is

Where my own quiet certainty sat in waiting.

Certainty is a funny thing,

It is string,

Waiting to be clewed by enduring fingers, by patient hands.

I am sheepish to think of mornings past when I have slept,

Knowing full well that the habit of my ways had turned.

Seeking quiet behind the curtains,

Even as the days, tapered by the season,

Went on without my waking, without my seeking

The place where certainty was waiting.

I have tried to keep journals,

I have tried to keep record,

But opted instead for the empty page and the rhythm of my pace,

Over the tired clutching of pens and the nervous hiding of diaries.

And I may have never been in love,

Because, like certainty,

It is an elected place to which we must venture.

And I have been busied by the habit of my ways -- 

To work hard and sleep late,
To avoid the early morning,

The fog-bound water and the certainty that I am ready.