Window shades are going up, and with them
Arms are being lifted into Life
By rising cords.

Pensively,
Or what would be pensively if we were more awake,
We stand in front rooms looking out
To see what sort of day.

A grey day.  Outside, birds plait & braid birdsong.

It is our time to want it to be
Sunday morning – the bacon and French toast
Bringing the past with its possibility of a drive
(Meadowlarks on a barbed-wire fence) to Aunt Lily and Uncle Jake's
(The heavy serving dishes passed, the cloth-covered table, in the corner
The flowery dishes and thin goblets proud behind their glass-paned doors,
The furniture a wine-red brown, chair seats taut in silver and green
Or silver and purple stripes; beyond the curtains, lilacs pointing
Above bee bushes and the pill-bugged earth).

It is our time to barely exercise.

Pretty impressive, jonathan. Depressing, but I like that. There is a lot of fine sound play within.

james

Great stuff, here. I didn't want it to end!

Do I hear "sequel"?

Joseph, maybe the poem I just posted, "Letter To An Ex-therapist," could be considered a sequel.  It was written many years later but is a kind of partner. 

I wonder if you need the second "bird" in the birdsong line.  The ending seems unfinished to me, but I love the details.