It's six o'clock on Saturday
And I don't have a word to say
About the call of Abraham,
So recklessly I start to cram.

Most likely in an hour or so,
I'll give the pen another go,
And set it down in mild disgust
That what I cannot do, I must.

It won't be that I haven't read
What older, wiser men have said,
But simply that I'd rather share
What sits already written there.

Why not take Matthew Henry's book
And let the students have a look?
Why bore them with my clumsy thought
When his is so superbly wrought?

All week I piece together lines
That others write and Google mines.
Is this my Sunday calling too,
To manufacture verbal glue?

But paraphrase is Andrewsbane:
I seek to summarize in vain.
My words are sprawling and confused,
My punctuation overused.

And rather than a synthesis
Of godly thought, I end with this:
A stream of comments so disjoint
The class despairs to find a point.

And such a stream I balk to write
While it is early in the night,
So first I'll call piano break
And give the living room a shake.

And then perhaps I'll get a get a snack
To fuel the mind as I come back
My weekly conflict to engage:
The Battle of the Empty Page.

I'll copy out tomorrow's text,
And ask myself, "now what comes next?"
I'll add a bullet point or two,
And running dry, cry, "What to do?"

With starts and stammers such as these,
The time will pass as does the breeze,
And twelve o'clock will find me still
With forty minutes left to fill.

And that is when the words will come
As steady as a beating drum,
But not because I've been inspired--
Instead because I'm getting tired.

And just as in my college days,
I'll wonder if the "better" ways
Of managing my time could work
Or if they'd make me go berserk.

At two a.m. I'll call it quits
And hope my outline sort of fits
The David Cook curriculum
(But hopefully is not as dumb).

So if the students learn a thing,
It won't be from the cruft I bring.
We'll say the Holy Spirit moved,
Or God His sense of humor proved.