From an ignorant child you'd never
learn it.
Yet the sophisticated know it is work
That is the secret of the good life.
God forbid,
Not labor that breaks your back,
picking
Vegetables, cleaning toilets, laying
down
That steaming hot blacktop on summer
days.
Nothing that crushes your body to fine
powder.
No, no, nothing as crude as dirty work
like that.
They are, after all, wise in the
world's ways, those
Who mean a career, achievement, a
steady craft,
Day in and day out whether you like it
or not,
Whether it involves crushing others or
ignoring
Them, playing dumb and innocent, bad
Faith to be sure, tapping at a
keyboard as you
Lie or steal to build your innocent dream
House, construct your illusions to
hide from truth
As you sell your soul to the money lenders,
those
Who hunt and kill the poor everywhere.
Sometimes
It is couched as art or
intellect. Get something down
Every day. It is not important what it
is or that
It doesn't serve to salve the wounded
ones. Regularity is what
Counts, a daily drop in the bucket of fugacious
waste,
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
creeping
Through a petty pace in petty pursuits
in petty lives.
All wise and happy people know it.
A career a work a task to call your
own, to say
I am a lawyer, a professor, a
journalist, anything
With a name, a title, a way to be but
not become,
A way to say that dusty death can
never
Claim that you have lived an idiot's
life, wasted
Work in time that you will never have
again.
Real work true work regular work,
So merry Rodin advised the sad young poet
Rilke,
Work, work, work, my boy, never cease
From toiling over your clay world of
words.
Exactly why he never said exactly,
Except I guess he meant it would bring
benefit.
And bubbly Freud's advice is
legendary.
You need work that is yours, so too
Some love, but mostly work to keep you
jolly
Sane. Life is a long and lonely vale
Of tears, so you must find your work
and do it
Whether you like it or not. Civilization
is a
Valley of deep discontent, pleasure
Might come to you later, a little here
Or there, once you get regular, down
to it
Daily. Success will rise to greet you,
The sweet smell of success.
From an ignorant child you'd never learn it.
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