In the morning light, when shadows cling,
And the weary heart feels the heaviness of the day,
I rise, reluctant, to the dawn\'s soft ring,
Yet with each breath, I embrace the way.
For within this moment, as the world takes flight,
Lies a purpose, deep and true, unseen,
To toil not just for survival, but to ignite,
The flame of my spirit, in the spaces between.
Though doubts may whisper in the stillness of dawn,
And the weight of the world tries to anchor me down,
I carry within me the seeds I must spawn,
In the garden of life, where my essence is sown.
What if this struggle is the path to my song?
What if each task is a brushstroke divine?
For the work I am called to, where I truly belong,
Brings forth the colors of my spirit\'s design.
So with weary bones and a heart somewhat tight,
I rise for the human, for the dreams I unfold,
In every action, there\'s power, there\'s light,
In this beautiful story, my truth will be told.
(Awakening to Purpose)
In the quiet hush of morning’s light,
When the dawn peeks softly, casting gold,
I rise, though reluctance grips my heart,
A gentle whisper of purpose unfolds.
With heavy eyes, I meet the day anew,
Yet in the stillness, a thought takes flight:
“I rise to labor, to forge and to create,
To strive for the truths that dwell in light.”
What stirs this discontent within my soul?
Why question the path I’m destined to tread?
For every task, each moment I embrace,
Bears the echo of those who’ve gone ahead.
These hands, though weary, shape the clay of life,
Each effort laced with love, hopes, and dreams.
The mundane transforms, and joy anew is rife,
In labor’s arms, fulfillment softly gleams.
So, as I rise with the sun’s warm embrace,
Let gratitude ignite this morning flame.
For I am a vessel of purpose and grace,
A conduit of life, love, and name.
In every sigh and every fleeting thought,
May I find strength, a reminder so profound:
Each day’s labor, no matter how small or fraught,
Is the tapestry of existence, beautifully bound.
(The Unwilling Ascent)
When the first grey light, a trespasser,
Invades the chamber where the soul lies moored,
And the reluctant flesh, a heavy blur,
Clings to the deep repose it has secured,
A whisper rises from the heart\'s dark well,
A plea for silence, for the velvet shade,
To hold the anchor of the morning spell,
And leave the world\'s great, clamorous parade.
But then, a voice, not mine, yet in my mind,
A stern, clear trumpet of the Stoic law,
Cuts through the languor, leaving doubt behind,
And pulls the spirit from its soft withdrawal:
\"I am rising to the work of a human being.\"
The mandate echoes, vast and absolute,
A sacred contract, all-encompassing,
To bear the fruit of my essential root.
If this is the high task for which I exist,
The very reason for the breath I draw,
The cosmic purpose that my life has kissed,
The flawless logic of the primal law;
If this is why the atoms were arranged,
And consciousness within this frame was set,
The final cause that cannot be exchanged,
The debt to being that I must not forget—Why then this shadow, this internal strife?
Why am I dissatisfied with my own dawn?
To shun the very essence of my life,
The destined labor I was brought upon?
Let the complaint be silenced, the small self cease,
And the grand engine of the will engage.
I am the architect of my own peace,
And this day is the turning of the page.
(The Work of a Human Being)
In the hush before the sun ascends,
when reluctance clings like shadow to my skin,
I remember—
I was not born to slumber endlessly,
nor to drift as a leaf without root or wind.
I rise, though unwilling,
to the ancient summons of existence.
The pulse of the world calls me,
the breath of countless lives before me whispers:
\"You are here for the work of a human being.\"
Why should I mourn the weight of dawn,
when each step is a testament,
each task a thread in the tapestry
for which I was woven?
I was brought into this world
not for idleness,
but for the shaping of moments,
the tending of flame,
the quiet labor that makes the day whole.
So let dissatisfaction fall away—
like mist dissolving in the morning light.
For in rising, I honor the reason I exist.
In rising, I become again
what I was meant to be:
a bearer of purpose,
a worker of the human soul,
a child of the world,
standing tall beneath the sky.
(Awakening to Purpose)
In the quiet dawn, when shadows cling,
And sleep\'s embrace still whispers low,
I rise, reluctant, to the day’s soft sting,
Yet within my heart, a deeper truth I sow.
With heavy eyes and weary limbs, I greet,
The world outside, bathed in golden light,
Yet restless thoughts, like waves, repeat,
“Why this discontent? Why this inner fight?”
For in this morning’s gentle hue,
Lies the sacred call of my own design,
To labor, to love, to see the world anew,
To weave my purpose through the fabric of time.
These hands, though tired, are meant to create,
Each breath a promise, each step a chance,
To rise from the shadows, to embrace my fate,
To dance with the dawn in life’s endless romance.
So I linger not in doubt’s cold grasp,
But clutch my dreams like stars in the night,
For I am a human, with a sacred task,
To carve out my path, to ignite my light.
And as the sun climbs higher in the sky,
I shed my reluctance, I shed my disdain,
For every moment lived is a reason to try,
To find joy in the journey, to embrace the mundane.
So when morning breaks, let discontent cease,
Let purpose awaken with each rising sun,
For in the work of being, I find my peace,
In the grand tapestry of life, I am one.
(When the Old Powers Stir)
Before dawn ever learned
to soften itself into gold,
before the human heart
was given its tender disquiet,
there were older powers
who understood the rising.
They were not gentle.
They did not whisper.
They were carved from the marrow
of necessity itself—
and when they stirred,
the mountains listened.
One was called The Waker,
born of obsidian breath and thunderbones,
who lifted the world from its first night
by force alone.
It taught the earliest creatures
that reluctance is a door
meant to be broken through,
that the unwilling must still stand
if the world is to continue turning.
The other was The Watcher,
a pale, star-eyed being
woven from the silence between heartbeats.
It alone knew what followed the rising—
the long, uncertain walk
through the hours that test and temper,
that grind the soft spirit
against the whetstone of existence
until something sharper, truer
begins to gleam.
And when they saw humanity—
small, waking reluctantly,
aching yet alive—
they placed a shard of themselves
within each morning breath.
That is why, when we rise unwillingly,
we feel the shadow of some ancient struggle:
the Waker pulling us upward,
the Watcher waiting to see
what we become afterward.
It is why the day feels mythic
even when it is ordinary,
why our hesitation
carries the weight of a forgotten battle,
and why each step into the light
feels like entering an old oath
we barely remember taking.
For we are the descendants
of those primordial expectations—
not made to drift,
not made to vanish,
but made to lift ourselves
even when the dawn tastes of iron
and the sky hangs low with omens.
And so we rise.
We falter.
We rouse the embers of purpose
with trembling hands
that once belonged to gods.
And when night returns,
we do not kneel in defeat.
We kneel in remembrance—
for we know that tomorrow,
when the old powers stir again,
we will rise once more
to the work of a human being,
bearing both our reluctance
and our defiance
like ancient, rightful heirs.
(To the Work of a Human Being)
In the early hush, when dawn is thin
and my bones argue with waking,
I rise unwilling—
a reluctant ember dragged toward day.
But then a whisper steadies me,
quiet as breath against a mirror:
You rise for the work of a human being.
And suddenly the light shifts—
not brighter, but truer,
as though the world tilts
to remind me why I walk within it.
For what is a morning
but a summons to purpose?
What is this pulse in my chest
but a soft commandment
to stand, to shape, to witness?
I remember then—
I was not placed here
merely to drift between hours,
nor to shrink beneath my doubts
like a shadow curling back into soil.
I was brought into this world
to shoulder a fragment of its meaning,
to carve some small mercy into its edges,
to kindle a spark
in the great, unending hearth
of human striving.
So I lift myself up—
not with ease,
not with perfection,
but with that quiet, stubborn dignity
that belongs to every soul
who rises again after the night.
I rise to the labor of becoming,
to the craft of being awake,
to the sacred duty of trying
even when trying feels hollow.
I rise to meet the hours
that ask me nothing more
than my presence
and nothing less
than my sincerity.
And if I am reluctant,
if my spirit drags like an anchor
through the silt of yesterday’s weight,
still—
still—
I answer the call.
For this is the work of a human being:
to rise unwilling,
then rise anyway.
To enter the world
with whatever light remains,
and trust that it is enough
to begin.
(After the Rising)
And later, when the day has unfolded
its long, unpredictable wings,
I look back at the moment
I first fought the morning—
that stubborn wrestle
between weariness and will—
and I wonder at the simple grace
of having answered it.
For the world did not demand greatness of me;
it only asked for my presence.
It only wished that I step into its weave
with whatever thread I could carry,
however frayed or trembling.
And what I found,
in the slow unwinding of the hours,
was that purpose seldom arrives
with thunder at its heels.
It comes quietly,
like a hand brushing dust from a shelf,
like a small truth
remembering itself.
I see now
that every reluctant rising
plants a seed—
a subtle vow to participate
in the great human chorus
that sings not with perfection,
but with persistence.
And in the echo of that vow
I feel something shift:
a gentler acceptance,
a softer stance toward my own becoming.
For I, too, am an unfinished work—
a draft written in breath and error,
in hope and hesitation.
Yet still, I move.
Still, I rise.
Still, I return to the art of living
with hands that shake
but do not close.
And perhaps that is enough—
not to shine,
not to triumph,
but to simply remain willing
to try again tomorrow
when morning presses its cool palm
against my life once more.
(Epilogue: The Ember Keeps Its Vigil)
And when all the poems are done—
when the morning has been wrestled,
the day has been walked,
and the old powers have whispered
their thunder-deep reminders—
what remains is simple
and unbearably human.
A single ember.
Small enough to cradle in a cupped hand,
fragile enough to wink out
if neglected,
yet stubbornly bright
beneath its ash.
This ember is what rises with us
on reluctant mornings,
what steadies us
when the hours lean heavy,
what glows in the quiet aftermath
when we consider what the day asked
and what we offered in return.
It is the inheritance of the Waker—
the spark that refuses sleep,
the pulse that insists on continuation.
And it is the blessing of the Watcher—
the soft intelligence that sees
our imperfect striving
and calls it worthy.
Every dawn,
the ember tests us:
Will you carry me again?
Will you tend me
even when the world feels weighty
and your spirit feels thin?
And every night,
the ember rewards us:
Not with triumph,
not with certainty,
but with the quiet recognition
that we did not extinguish it—
that in all our reluctance
and all our weary persistence,
we kept it alive.
This is the legacy of the human being:
not gods,
not giants,
but keepers of a flame
that survives on willingness alone.
And tomorrow—
as the sky unseals its pale horizon,
as the old powers stir in their unseen vaults,
as our bodies hesitate
but our deeper selves lean forward—
the ember will glow again.
A small, undefeated light.
Waiting for us to rise.