Idling Hard

Things not worth doing may be worth not doing well;
When you are doing nothing, your best will not do.
From career you retire in idleness to dwell
Unless you find former nothings to amuse you.

Work is a labor, perhaps a burden to bear,
And yet a purpose and a process to move us.
We wish relief from exertion in our soft chair,
Until endless rest changes it to immobile truss.

Then we must idle hard to recapture what’s lost;
Do to be doing and fighting not to be done.
I need not be better than Seuss, Whitman, or Frost,
As long as I can fill the hours and still have fun.