Late riser — Summary

Dave BontaContemplative

a morning born in the evening I am not yet up and out of my mind I am in doubt how to rise in or over the body of land I am lost in

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Waking up late can feel like arriving after the day has already begun, and this short poem turns that groggy feeling into something larger. The speaker describes "a morning born in the evening," a neat paradox that suggests time has slipped out of order. They aren't yet "up and out," and the line break lets that phrase spill into "of my mind," so being out of bed blurs into being out of one's head. The speaker is half awake, uncertain, and a little unmoored.

The last lines widen the confusion. The speaker doesn't know how to rise "in or over the body / of land" they're lost in. The body of land could be the landscape outside, but it also hints at the speaker's own body, as if the two have merged. The mood is dreamy, hesitant and quietly anxious. Nothing dramatic happens; the poem simply stays inside the fog of waking and lets the reader feel its disorientation.

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