This poem knocked me right smack-dab between the eyes

The Life of a Day

Tom Hennen

Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has

its own personality quirks which can easily be seen

if you look closely. But there are so few days as

compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it

would be surprising if a day were not a hundred

times more interesting than most people. But

usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless

they are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red

maple trees and hazy sunlight, or if they are grimly

awful ones in a winter blizzard that kills a lost

traveler and bunches of cattle. For some reason

we like to see days pass, even though most of us

claim we don’t want to reach our last one for a

long time. We examine each day before us with

barely a glance and say, no, this isn’t one I’ve been

looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for

the next, when, we are convinced, our lives will

start for real. Meanwhile, this day is going by per-

fectly well adjusted, as some days are, with the

right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light

breeze scented with a perfume made from the

mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak

leaves, and the faint odor of last night’s meander-

ing skunk.