First Day New Year - Before Epiphany

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The first thing we have to do
is to notice
that we've loaded down this camel
with so much baggage
we'll never get through the desert alive.

Something has to go. 

Then we can begin to dump
the thousand things
we've brought along

until even the camel has to go
and we're walking barefoot
on the desert sand.

There's no telling what will happen then.

But I've heard that someone,
walking in this way,
has seen a burning bush.

"Lightening the Load" by Francis Dorff, O. Praem., from Last Night I Died: Poems from Retirement. © Francis Dorff, O. Praem., 1999.