Where The Great Work Begins

We were all bone-tired
before this
exaltation of humility
came upon us.

We may have looked
more madcap, more animated
from a distance, but
if you’d looked into 
our eyes, you would have seen
years of restless sleep

and no true relaxation,
regardless of what 
yoga magazines told us
we’d gained.

Scoff as you want.
Had we been truly mindful,
we would have forsaken
our lifestyles of abandon
decades ago.

Now, we have 
deep dreams 
in our sleep and they
drive us mad. Now,
we sit at home all day
chafing behind the ears
and in the center of our chests.
Now, we try to see a way forward
back to that manic past

when half of us 
walked around pretending
we weren’t waiting
for a crash into hell

and the other half
walked around pretending
this was just the ramp up
to some temple of gold where,
at last, we’d truly
get a chance to rest.

Meanwhile,
nature
(or something like it)
made other plans.

Once upon a time,
before this real exhaustion
set in, we were all bone-tired
but we invented a phrase
to cover it up: “and they lived happily
ever after.” Something
to which we aspired. Something
that kept these dreams at bay.

A phrase where every word
now needs to be redefined.

Get some rest.
This is where
our Great Work begins.