The shadows are longer, and cooler the sun,

In the morning before a run.

The world is calm but not silent,

Still quieting from the eve and her violence.

 

No one around to hear it too.

Is it even too early for the dew?

I stretch the soreness from my joints like sinew,

Preparing to plunge feet first at my cue.

 

Jumping into my pace from a pace,

My breathing settles into cyclical sound,

A point of focus amid the sonorous waste:

The cacophony of chirps, bleats, and rustles around.

 

Breathing is now all I hear, cadenced with the beat of my feet.

My mind wanders as I drum, thoughts cascading into clarity,

Demanding my full focus, with rapacious full frontal temerity,

Yet they manage to slip away at tandem speed, as if bikers on the beat.

 

The half waymarker just passed on my right.

An about-face later and I’m on toward the line;

I keep my pace, calves beginning to bite,

Both lungs working and starting to whine.

 

Nearing the close, my mind becomes singular.

I break into a sprint against the past,

Thinking only of the now

Hearing only my labored, metered breathing

Feeling only the striking of my feet

Pushing me fast as I will to go

Toward the end of that final line.