Writing in the morning

I'm habitually late getting out of bed.  My downstairs neighbor probably hates the fact that I have to set three alarms on two different machines to make sure I wake up in the morning...and it doesn't always work.  I would love to one day wake up early before work, sit down at my computer, and start writing.  Every once in a while I manage that task on weekends, but weekdays?  It's just not happening right now.

I do, however, write in the morning. 

At seventy miles an hour, surrounded by six to ten other people in the van pool, on the interstate, I write.  My bag sits on my knees, my notebook is propped open on my bag, a light is on over my head, and I try to feel when the bumps are coming so as to not scrawl all over my page.  Most of my recent poetry has begun on the long stretch of interstate that takes me to work. 

Things constantly go by outside the windows.  The fields go from winter desolation to spring electricity to falls harvest.  A different set of cars and drivers goes by everyday.  It's the same, yet different, every time I pass.  All of that gets written down in my notebook.

When I get home, I can leaf through my notebook and distill the scrawl of my journeys into moving poetry.

All because I write in the morning.