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MORNING TREK He rarely has those nights when he can sleep deep beneath the comforter and curl himself back into childhood in the twin bed next to his  brother, a life he can barely remember. His parents have long departed for that permanent slumber in a room with no view, touching hands forever as they once did in the confines of privacy, now distant and deaf to the whimper of nightmares that occasionally still startle him awake and make him restless in the milk white light of dawn. The trembling rays of sun, splitting the pines on a cool summer morn, splinter his shaded bedroom and on the days when calm abandons, he rises to walk. It soothes him to see the giant pines still asleep in their bark, the dreamless vegetation, unscarred by human steps, swaying in the early breeze as the huge ball of fire ignites the watery horizon with flames that abruptly shatter the darkness about the sleeping lake homes. The loons have ceased lamenting. Silently, he thanks the crystal spirit of summer for the soothing yellow gift of morning. Soon houses blink their shades open, a motor roars across the lake and in the distance, a chimney raises its smoky arms skyward. The forest absorbs night as light walks the mulch paths toward day. He turns homeward, listening to his own footsteps, no longer searching for himself.

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