Laziness

I can't seem to get anything done. I'm in a funk when it comes to academics, and it's so hard to get anything done when I can quickly go online and look at wedding web sites. While looking through a book of Spanish poetry (something I want to include in my ceremony) I came upon this poem that embodies exactly how I feel right now.

Ode to Laziness

Yesterday I felt this ode
would not get off the floor.
It was time, I ought
at least
show a green leaf.
I scratched the earth: "Arise,
sister ode
-said to her-
I have promised you, do not be afraid of me,
I am not going to crush you,
four-leaf ode,
four-hand ode,
you shall have tea with me.
Arise,
I am going to crown you among the odes,
we shall go out together along the shores
of the sea, on a bicycle."
It was of no use.

Then,
on the pine peaks,
laziness
appeared in the nude,
she led me dazzled
and sleepy,
and showed me upon the sand
small broken bits
of ocean substance,
wood, algae, pebbles,
feathers of sea birds.
I looked but did not find
yellow agates.
The sea
filled all spaces
crumbling towers,
invading
the shores of my country,
advancing
successive catastrophes of the foam.
Alone on the sand
spread wide
its corolla.
I saw the silvery petrels crossing
and like black creases
the cormorants
nailed to the rocks.
I released a bee
that was agonizing in a spider's net.
I put a little pebble in my pocket,
it was smooth, very smooth
as the breast of a bird,
meanwhile on the shore,
all afternoon
sun struggled with mist.
At times
the mist was steeped
in thought,
topaz-like,
at others fell
a ray from the moist sun
distilling yellow drops.

At night,
thinking of the duties of my
fugitive ode,
I pulled off my shoes
near the fire;
sand slid out of tem
and soon I began to fall
asleep.

By Pablo Neruda, translated by William Carlos Williams