You watch the veins beneath the skin bulge and
Pulse with blood. Nostrils filter the morning air.
The mouth wet, the tongue flicks the teeth,
Tasting saliva, keeping moist. Much unseen
To care for. Heart monitored. Lungs pulling
Like the tide. Skin, the body's radar, stretching.

A grandfather clock tolls the hours
As it has for a hundred years,
The mechanism slightly worn ticks and tocks
Tocks and ticks keeping the beat. Eyelids blink.

Through the window the morning sky reddens,
Turns to an orange blaze on the horizon
As the sun lifts itself up to greet the day.

Then the sky turns yellow, fades as the light grows.
Greens emerge from darkness, silhouettes deepen.
The reds of geraniums emerge from inky sleep.

My chair wobbles slightly. echoing my age
But holds on, though its grasp weakens slightly.

This Russian doll called life springs up again
A body inside a body, a cage inside a cage.
Each one discovered then revealed
Understood as the mind turns to the next,
Each smaller, more difficult to prise apart
Hoping for, looking for revelation, understanding
Enlightenment as the clock tolls its next hour.