On the moon

Two thirty in the afternoon

Just waking up and feel like I’m on the moon

It’s rainy outside, and I don’t want to get chilled

Instead I’ll stay in and write until my journal is filled

Earlier in the day I went down to the beach

And the waves up to my toes did reach

For the dogs, I threw a stick way out into the water

One of the dogs belongs to my daughter

A Golden Retriever, she will be a Service dog

Working with an autistic child, who might otherwise remain in a fog

The whole cottage has begun to reek

From mildew which built up over the week

Without even Internet access to divert me

I’ve totally changed my whole philosophy

Keeping busy this week has lost its allure

Doing nothing has really been the cure

For my Type A personality

Now that I am out of the city

I no longer spend all that time looking for a job

And certainly don’t anymore sob

While flipping through the help wanted ads

And even though when nobody hired me I used to get mad

Now I feel like placing a bet

On how long it takes until I can afford to take a jet

To Japan, a place by which I have been smitten,

While doing research for the novel I have written.

People say it would have been wiser to go there first

Going afterwards could definitely be worse

Than not going at all

But I won’t cast a pall

Upon all my research which I did on the Net

It made me feel as though Japan I’d already met

But it’s by now four thirty in the afternoon

And I’m still living on the moon.

Janet Bellinger    

c 2006