Every now and then,
we wake up,
rub our eyes,
look around,
and panic a bit.
"Wait...where am I?"
"Where did all the time go?"
Maybe the death of a loved one does it.
Maybe the kids growing up and leaving home breaks the spell.
Maybe falling in love after decades of dormant deadness
jolts us from our slumber.
Who knows?
Anything can wake us up
from the zombie trance,
from the sleeper's dance,
if only for a brief moment.
But then
back to sleep,
to routine,
to settling,
to numbness,
to feeding our fat faces,
to the white noise of the everyday,
back to the catatonic in-between.
Yet the in-between is
where life happens,
where time flies,
where sleepwalkers hold sway,
each and every day,
an empire of dreamers,
ignoring with a shrug
the Gift
that
IS.
But how can this be?
Do you not see?
Can you not BE?
Wake up!
WAKE UP, I say!
Reject the sleepwalker haze,
stumbling through the days
doing whatever pays,
killing time that's
killing you
one itty-bitty heartbeat
at a time.
Again and again and again
and again
and
AGAIN,
I beg you!
Wake up!
Are you listening?
Live awake!
Are you listening?
Feel awake!
Are you listening?
I said wake up!
Get out and wander,
you luminous spirits,
as the rest of the world
slumbers.
All is not lost!
Look around!
Live aware
if you dare.
Here is life all around!
Here is everything!
Yours!
ALL YOURS!
Now is all you get!
But you get it all
for a little while.
Before this was
nothing more
and after this will be
nothing else!
So wake up!
"What is this you say?"
"Tell me more!"
Choose again.
"But what are the answers?"
Choose again.
"I want to know."
You already know.
You have always known.
Shhh...quiet now, go back to sleep.
You're having a bad dream, that's all.
"But...wait...more!"
"But...why...?"
"But...how..."
"But...but..."
zzz