Office Ruba'iyat

Office Ruba'iyat

(verses I-XXI)

I

Boot! For the coffee to drive sleep away

Brews in ritual to prepare the day;

‘Tis time to resume the suspended tasks,

Ne’er finished from the piles of yesterday.

II

Before the workday alarm sounded again,

While drowsing in bed where I still was lain,

I thought of why to rise from comfort there

And to commute to earn my daily grain.

III

And, as that electronic Cock did crow,

By worn habit, I made ready to go

In routines honed by the repetition

That mindless muscles and creaking joints know.

IV

Now the New Day begins same as the last,

Indistinctly from all those which have passed;

Years and decades trodden on this known path

To where my career deeds have been amassed.

V

Some indeed have gone, not to return there,

With new ones to fill the desks they left bare.

Their duties remain and reports are due,

Now the jobs for the next promoted heir.

VI

And, old and new, arrives each employee

Piping out their cries of “Coffee! Coffee!

Hot coffee!” – black, sweet, creamy and/or both –

They yearn for the roasted fruit of the tree.

VII

Come, fill the Cup, and let the labor start.

Delve for that data and fill up that chart.

The timeclock is ticking once I punch in

And there are hours to go ere I depart.

VIII

Whether a mocha or a hazelnut treat,

With creamer for white and crystals for sweet,

The elixir soon does its morning trick

And today’s monotony I can meet.

IX

Each Morn a thousand chores brings, they say;

Nine hundred three done by the end of day

With more atop my backlog to ignore

Until the next thousand add to the fray.

X

Well, let them lay there! What more can I do?

This darn computer is as slow as glue

And soon ad hoc requests will be forgot

To pass unanswered from the turmoil’s view.

XI

With me nestled in cubicle alone

Armed with a steaming mugful of my own,

I build the tome to tell each year’s tale

From what data is recorded and known.

XII

A Book of Facts and Figures should suffice

To get the answers and support advice

As we through the Wilderness forge our way;

Authorized truth, if not Paradise!

XIII

Some work for the now in this World; and some

Await promised Retirement to come;

Ah, but to take my paycheck, less the tax,

And worry not of a future too glum.

XIV

Look to cycling Nature upon her wheel,

Pedaling against Time’s persistent peal.

Nothing started but that it pauses and stops,

To restart from leftovers of the last meal.

XV

And those who composed the latest report,

That, if read, has a useful life so short,

Must soon return to the traveled treadmill

To produce the update of the same sort.

XVI

The dreams of careers from our bygone youth

Wither away – or not; that is the truth.

Whatever we do as our lives grow longer

Has power to disappoint or to soothe.

XVII

Think, in these environs repetitious

Whose clockwork ever grinds so pernicious,

How the lowest and the highest both pass

With no regards to how much ambitious.

XVIII

They say the State Library there still keeps

The copies of old reports in their heaps.

And those archives will chronicle forever

Our works long after our eternal sleeps.

XIX

I sometimes think nothing arises so fresh

That beneath it we could not find some flesh

Of another who planted seed long ago

Whose work then with that now did so enmesh.

XX

And for this not-so-novel, there is due

More credit to the past than to the new.

So though you gather acclaim for it all,

Expect the next author will forget you.

XXI

Ah, fill my Cup again and back to work.

No eternity not reason to shirk

That which I can do here and now despite

Wherever it goes in tomorrow’s murk