The darkest hour

It’s very early, I’m awake before the early bird.

The worm is still safe until the birds are heard.

Do I stay in bed, and risk oversleeping?

Or do I take advice on getting ahead

in my personal growth and needs?

Work to do, poems to write, books to read;

the alternative is just to stay in bed,

but no, I’m gonna get up instead

Exercise is good in the fight to shed the fat but

what never occurs to me is the vital fact that

it only works alongside a balanced diet.

Press ups, crunches alone won’t do it.

Eat less, move more and get a routine that

keeps you from binging in front of the screen.

Be kind to others with a helping hand; be

thoughtful of the stranger from a foreign land.

Life is for living and to do it well,

and to keep moving forward until the bell

rings that says your time is up in this place

where we live, wearing several faces;

mother, daughter, lover, friend.

I choose to enjoy it all before they send

a box made of wood, fashioned only for me,

no cardboard I think, it’ll save a tree.