Awakenings

This is one of my earliest poems. I had recently retired from work and often lay in bed after wakening just soaking up the feeling of not being in a hurry to get up, shower, shave and dress so as to go to work. I had risen at an early hour all my life being blue collar. Most of my work life I got up around 4 AM especially with Halliburton. I thought I was decadent by lying in bed till 8 AM. I was the epitome of slothfulness and laziness.

I had learned to enjoy this time as it is was opportunity to just lay there and truly think about things. I didn’t daydream but turned over philosophical ideas I had pondered all my life. It was a time of reflection and of forgiving oneself for all the self-proclaimed deficiencies I choose to heap upon myself.

It was a short amount of time that I devoted to myself unselfishly. I will call it “Greg’s Meditation” but I didn’t hum or chant mantras. Later on in this period of reflection I was visited by what I call my poetry sprite in that I received a lot of inspirational themes to write about and thus compose poems.

As always you can only lay there so long until nature forces you to get up and go pee. I never went back to bed after that as I set about the duties of the day. It is true what I say in the poem as I do offer up my petitions to God at this time as I gaze out my window and take in the beauty and wonder of nature. I deem myself as just a creature and part of the grand design. I am at home as I welcome nature, be it blue skies and thundering claps of lightning. I am in awe of nature which I deem synonymous with GOD. God is life and nature is his, Its, design or plan.

My eyes open but briefly to stare

I then again resign to oblivion’s care

Snippets of awareness sprinkle my thought

My consciousness stirs but briefly for naught

Peaceful rest as in my mother’s womb

Eternal sleep as in some ancient tomb

From the depths I strain to acknowledge

That annoying insistent thing calling

I grasp the rungs and struggle to climb

That ladder of awareness, to awaken my mind

My eyes slowly open and I perceive my sight

Thru my window I see warm bright sunlight

Branches wave, tickled by an unseen breeze

Birds dart like meteors, seemingly with ease

Red bricks and white plastered walls

Who I am, faintly returns to my recall

I stir and seek my Master’s face

My dogs rouse to seek a closer place

My prayers, my petitions I reverently raise

To my GOD, my Master, with adoration praise

Thank you LORD for one more day to see

The light of thou countenance so I might be

Found Worthy, Faithful, Honorable and Free

To know the Eternal Secret, The great Mystery

Thank you Lord for I am truly blessed

To have run the race, to have survived my test

I must hurry now, that insistent thing’s still calling

Forgive me LORD; Nature’s necessity requires no dawdling!