The Sabbath

The Sabbath (1910) by Marc Chagall

I spent the Jewish Sabbath working.
So do I the Christian Sabbath today.
I feel like demanding God to send
Some no-nonsense Pharisees to
My boss and my clients...

Some five thousand years ago,
The Lord insisted everyone
Take one day off out of seven
Despite the utter simplicity
Of the labour of those days...

How merciful the Lord was
Compared to ever urgent
Bosses and clients of our days!

But wait.
It's we ourselves who walked out
Of Jehovah's tyranny.
Because we did not want to
Observe the Sabbath out of the fear of God.

But we simply walked into
Another tyranny of corporate society
That took away good rest from us
Despite utter complexity
Of the labour of our days!

Thinking that we were freed from one thing,
We are actually mere slaves to other thing!

I want to observe the Sabbath of our time
That frees us at least one day
From complexity of our age
Not out of the fear of God
But out of the love of humanity...

But but but...
I still have thousands of words to write today.
What I can afford now is
Only five-minute Sabbath from work
In which I can walk away from my desk
And I can pet my lovely cat...

It's better than nothing, anyway.