or if the medication wakes you early, you may reflect
more truly on the garden's ruin of late weeds among
black apples and the sunflowers’ awaited surrender
 
that itself is chemical; in dawn’s light you may know
that all around us pharmack mysteries are at work;
and reflect, not unhappily, that life is brief; no more
 
than the flaring, really, of Hydromedusa or light
from a luminous tide. You may sit and not cringe
remembering failures, swervings of will; dread
 
for now recedes before that brightness which attends
vertigo and leg-jitter, nail-flavor, nausea; it is
the body talking after all and now when morning comes
 
again crimson to the lawn toys’ stirring; when
schoolbus doors part again with their enduring sigh
you will rouse yourself from laboratory dreams
 
of sourceless hallways, mortars, ancient jars;
but not of martyred mice or primates, remember
as every cell in the vine dies another kind is born,
 
nematode or snowflake, as here in a dawn garden
you may hear the highway’s drone as oars in dark water
and calmly wait on winter never caring if it comes.