1. A few minutes past Ash Wednesday, and already I'm behind on my commitment. All this work, taking care of family, and then the imposition of ashes. At home there is the eating and bathing and getting ready for bed. Then more work, interspersed with highlights and scores from ESPN. Before I know it, it is already after midnight. No wonder this is the season of repentance. I must begin by confessing my failure to start properly, and I feel like a hiker who has fallen over just as he stands up. 2. I'm always playing catch up, Lord, and running just enough to stay ahead of the consequences of living behind. 3. The flowers have no smell, and the gravestones look like decayed bones. Worms have moved on to fresher homes one step ahead of the birds presiding over hell. I'm just a bigger, more rational worm, wondering, wondering what is alone and how far have I, will I fall. 4. I'm too sleepy to write; my eyes are too heavy to read. I'm sorry now for all the time I didn't spend getting to know me. 5. Resentment curls around me and is about me like a fur coat that comes alive with a hiss of bitterness. I hear my bark and feel the collar tighten. And I'm too frightened by my shadow to do anything but lay low. That and snarl. 6. What is my gift? Is it really teaching? How would I know, since the faces before me stay blank so long then only slowly emit sounds? And when jewels of wisdom come out, certainly it wasn't I who put them there. 7. Sick. Sick. Sick. I drive deeper the thorn in my side, and burn myself past the wick. No light. No light. I stumble through dark, cluttered halls. Work, play, rest, and fight. Cry, cry, cry. For now, my face is blank gazing through mirrors for links. While in vomit I lie. 8. I want to make some useful thing from this raging insomnia. 9. I'm here, waiting for a phrase of good notes, surrounded by the stench of waste, the heavy breath of a child asleep in the back seat. 10. Up late again, hating my pen. I'm grading papers now because I allowed time to drift on through as if I had nothing left but crime. More foolish than youth is the old man who knows the limits of his wingspan and tries to fly anyway. This at night by the light of an extinguished candle. So much more to do. Grade: exams and essays. Meetings: search committees, student conferences. And for you, verses. I laugh at the joke I've made of me.  I judge others' work but within my dark room lurks one who flings curses like a lover too cruel to leave the self he makes grieve. 11. I'm too tired for sin. So is this a victory? Or does the devil win when exhaustion conquers me? 12. From this chaos -- toys and trash and tipped over, disheveled furniture; unidentifiable squishy spots; ripped open bags and books laying on multi-no-color carpet -- what can You make? My daughter tells non-sensical stories. The iron giant, who was good in the movie, had been given a shot of poison that's turned him into a bad thing chasing her.  But you saved her. She rambles on like this never completing one narrative before moving on to another. She concludes by announcing "I'll clean up the living room in the morning."  Then, by the light of the television, I see her holding in tears. She informs me that she's not afraid of the dark in a voice that sounds like stumbling. 13. Help me, Lord, to sleep right tonight. Even in dreams, laying inert, I manage to fail. Far too fatigued to try and fix what I've muddled today, at least let me succeed in having a small measure of rest and let waking be a victory to build upon. 14. Let these violins coax good sleep and may I wake to a dream, not this lethargic waltz. 15. Thank you for this cup of coffee and Bobby Hutcherson's vibes, my breakfast before Spring cleaning. If I could only start each day so smoothly I might always look forward to the work of the day. Maybe then I'd touch the hem of peace and carry healing through the night. Perhaps Sleeping and Waking would stop being escapes from each other. 16. The floor is my friend helping me to wrench my neck. I smell the musty sin where it lay.  Here I read your words and remember who I am: hungry, fat, in need of sleep. 17. When I first became a Christian, I thought I loved Lent. Scrubbing off a layer of dirt and like a child who forgets to wash his neck or feet, I emerge feeling clean. But I'm really scraping off skin and often more against this sharp rock. See, I'm not a kid but a snake coiled around my tail, tonguing the air, I'm afraid of and strike at everything. Now I know why I avoid mirrors and why I must keep looking.