So Very Tired Is The Man

This poem came to me when I awoke one night at 4 a.m. I had everything but the last lines. I lay back to go to sleep. about two minutes later AFRICA came to me. I sat up and wrote the last lines.

B''H

1/26/13

So very tired is the man

From walking walking walking 

Through Ages Ice and Stone and Iron

From Sumer and Babylon

Canaan and Lebanon

And Egypt and on and on and on

Without a day of rest

He's carried himself through millennia

And centuries of pain --

So very tired is the man

He shall not rise again

But sleep -- now -- at last

With his corn and wheat and rice

His oxen, sheep, and lambs

His eagles and his caves

His castles and his battlefields...

He will sleep and sleep

And rise not anymore

Until he goes home

To Africa.

--Firestone Feinberg

Reviews

[M Breen]

Science says that we all came from Africa, it's very interesting that you say "the man" will only sleep with a return to Africa. The poem is quite Biblical, but in your unique voice.
Thanks.

[Firestone Feinberg]

Thank you for your wonderful review; I am all smiles. You really 'got' this poem --
better than even I did; I read it at a poetry-writing group to which I belong, and one member told me that our origin is in Africa. That was something I didn't consciously know. Africa just fell out of me -- in the middle of the night! Thanks also for subscribing to my writing. I am thrilled. A kind one you are. --David

[M Breen]

And that improves the poem. It's even better that you didn't know (on a conscious level).