Writing this in an office building at 7:32 AM on a Thursday

I find myself walking down a path

That twists under industrial bridges

In fluorescent halls filled to to teeth

With monitors glazing numbers. 

My feet long to stray from those wicked walls

Where they tramp silently in the quiet of libraries 

And instead to take the wooded road

Which snakes under a harvest moon.

I weep for the path before me. 

There is no joy in completing files

Or warbling songs to trapped birds

By a water cooler.

There is no accomplishment worth having

No check worth cashing

No quota worth meeting

That fills the stomach and lightens the heart.

Reading in the papers a story of a boy

Who dreamed a dream he kept to himself.

He saw the lane illuminated before him

And walked the trail alone.

I wish I had his courage.