Mornings

mine is the house with the jungle yard,
where snakes may catch you off your guard,
but the snakes eat the rodents and the birds eat the bugs,
and i peak at the school bus through a wet shrub,

as i stand in the fog at the break of dawn,
and accumulate sunsets one by one,
and this road is busy, and this road, its long.
and the only lights lit are those i turned on.

once i stood here with my dad,
and once with an empty kroger bag,
and once i ran 'crossed fields and roads,
as the morning dew soaked into my toes.

and once a chicken clucked beside me,
and once stood a tree that broke the wind,
and once the hill that is now a thicket
stood tall and bare and new and thin.

and once i did not stand here
but now it is my home.
some day i will stand elsewhere,
and i wont be alone.