At Rest

“An object at rest remains at rest.”

This (partial) first law of motion

Is the law of motion I know the best,

For while I lie in the slumbering ocean

Of early morning dreams, the dawn

Begins to dance through the windowpane

Beside my bed, and the conjured fawn

Begins to prance upon my sleeping brain,

But still I remain at rest.

I wait to rise, to wake, to test

My movements as the night transitions

To newborn day. My senses soon suggest

Resuming life’s bold expeditions

Beyond the realms of dreaming,

But even in the sunlight’s beaming

Still I remain at rest.

Then, finally, the impulse of the spheres –

Forever revolving, marking time –

Compels me, as the image disappears,

To rise, to wake, to heed the chime

And cross the threshold into conscious rhyme,

Yet rest remains a natural state,

Returning nightly with unerring fate.


I've been fortunate over the past several years to often have the flexibility to choose my own working hours. For me, that means I can stay up late at night - which is when I often write poetry - and then sleep in a bit the next day. There's not too much to this poem beyond the notion that I like to take my time waking up in the morning.