If you stay in bed

This morning I lay in bed before
the alarm went off wondering about
the shape of my day and what would
happen if I didn't go to my desk to
write before doing anything else.

It was the first time in months
that I thought about switching
my routine.

I lay there thinking
I don't have anything to say,
so why bother to get up and
sit at my desk with pen in hand
waiting for words that will never come?

But then my alarm went off and
out of habit I went to my desk
and sat down and took a pen in hand
and opened my journal to a blank page
and found the words waiting there
I couldn't see while lying in bed.

Maybe I'm just inherently lazy?

Or maybe it's just an illusion,
and you can't see it as an illusion
(that's the nature of an illusion)
until you get out of bed?

Or maybe writing comes down to habit--
a routine, a reminder to sit at your desk,
a need to find, through the familiar,
what's not yet known?

You don't know what you'll write
until you pick up your pen and begin.

If you stay in bed or go for a walk
instead of sitting down to write,
you'll never know what words are
waiting to give themselves to you.