The meaning of labor is far removed from what economists reckon. “You shall feel the sweat on your brow and toil in life’s fields.” (paraphrasing Genesis 3:17-19)…

In him sparkled Capricorn’s pragmatism
More glaring than I could sometimes behold
Already three young ones, and a leafy abode
Early 30’s
While I pilgrimed
Through a landscape of arts and esthetica
(loosely stitching an IT career in the intervals)
Weighing what matters on an other…
scale
Not many could fathom my route, nor I

Yet we recognized our Self
in each one’s seeing, in thinking
and so collaborated awhile
in the guise of arcane earthly pursuits
teaching computers to do what we wanted
or what the corporation willed
and enjoyed humor and irony, time permitting

Till one day I arranged an experiment
proffering a different doorway
laying a tome on the passenger seat
knowing I’d drive this lunchtime
“Karmic Relationships, volume 6”

His voice rich in digested life, his gaze uncasual
“That looks pretty dense”
His remark also a surprised question, thrown off his horse
What is -this- about you now?
As if to ask
And a part of me bid fond fare you well not speaking
Knowing soon life would catch up with us
And at the crossroads, we’d diverge
“It is”, I held ground. “It is”

One time he said I had too many options
and one time that his opinion of me fluctuated
as though I held this answer, not he
And 20 years passed and the Web of desires
made it possible to check on lost friends
without inordinate investment

“I have thought about you many many times”
I recalled his spirit at once in this honesty
Does he sense, I wonder
That we must collaborate in a new way
Many centuries from now
Not because it is wished or unwanted
But because the universe is constructed this way

And will we recognize each other then in freedom?
And will he forgive my trespasses
As I have long let fall aside his own?
Likely, my debt is the greater.

_______RS

[ Image: ‘Nightcome’ Source: Joseph Walls ]  (link).

► Handy INDEX — scan through all available ||SWR|| articles