Unsaddled

"Breakfast without a newspaper is a horse without a saddle." (Edward R. Murrow)

I am six months into my experiment of not reading the daily newspaper at breakfast. Instead I read essays, including one by E.B. White, who, in response to Murrow's metaphor, called breakfast "the hour when we sit munching stale discouragement along with fresh toast." Breakfast is more enjoyable, but I sometimes feel I've missed something important – something others know that I don't but should. Stretching Murrow's metaphor, it's me that’s unsaddled – riderless. This morning, as I walk the dog on the berm overlooking the Whitemud Freeway, there's the usual tangle of commuters, all hurrying somewhere.

winter morning –
the cat mews
over her empty bowl

published in Haibun Today

Note: Note: both the Murrow and White quotes are taken from E.B. White, Newspaper Strike, The New Yorker, December 12, 1953.