by Jeffrey Essmann

“Worry is a weakness from which very few of us are entirely free. We must be on guard against this most insidious enemy of our peace of soul.” ~ Blessed Solanus Casey

I wake and fret I’d not sufficient sleep
And that my dreams portended bodings ill.
I fear I might my coffee somehow spill
Across my laptop and thereby unkeep
My latest musings, my perusals deep.
And then I worry, quite against my will, 
That all my deepest thoughts are simply frill
And fluff and doomed to history’s ashy heap.
But then it’s time for prayer and God alone
(Although I wonder: have I checked my phone?):
I cross myself, the Holy Name invoke;
The Psalmist in his opening song intones
That “God is sitting, laughing on His throne”
And suddenly I understand the joke

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Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, Agape Review, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Amethyst Review, Modern Reformation, The Society of Classical Poets, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He was 2nd Place winner in the Catholic Literary Arts 2022 Assumption of Mary poetry contest and 1st Place winner in its Advent: Mary Mother of Hope contest later that year. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.