This morning, before the clock struck seven...

My companions and I had already flown nearly five miles
in the cool no-one-else-is-yet-awake air.
We had nodded to wildflowers beside the trail,
espied a yellow-bellied sapsucker in the woods,
and freed nine painted ladies.

(My life, after all, has "a certain Tom Sawyerish quality to it." And that's a good thing.)