Last morning
the dog oven
warms my feet,
the rough quilt folding 
like a tortilla. 

I write some 
and read some 
and clean some 
and then prepare 
for a friend’s 
birthday party. 

He is 71,
now retired, 
focusing on 
significance 
more than success. 

I stop at 
Poor Richard’s Books 
and order more
windows to 
other lives: 
A Companion 
for Owls, Fathers, 
and Four Swans, 
along with a 
1924 KY State 
Register,
containing
musty reference
to my wife’s 
greats’ 1835
marriage. 

With Manning,
Taylor, and Pape 
accompanying,
I drive, arrive,
and enter in. 

Beautiful home,
loving family,
delicious food,
many friends:
a fusion of 
kids, parents, grands, 
some working, some 
re-tired. Our 
conversation 
sporadically 
eliding, 
colliding, 
deciding, 
abiding, 
and re-trying—
a verbal Ouroboros. 

Much of it
centered on
technology 
and working
and then kids
and then dreams
captured or 
long deferred. 

I return home
through curtained rain
and reflect like
a remote monk
or Schopenhauer 
on the little life
each day we’re given—
born in the morn;
die at twilight—
and ask myself:
Was I worthy? 
Was it worthy?