'Twas the Night Before,
When all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring,
Not even the louse.

His wife had just left him,
His kids ran away.
He sat there in anguish
Groaning a mournful bay.

Tears began flowing
As he thought through his life.
His job had just ended
In anguish and strife.

He had tormented his family
With anger and rage.
They had all tried hard
To disengage.

But the kids had been fighting
And tension was high;
His wife was depressed
And wanted to die.

Now it was quiet
And alone in the house,
The tears wouldn't stop.
He felt meek as a mouse.

He cried for his kids
He cried for his wife.
He wondered inside
Just what was this life?

The question caught him off guard
As he sat there alone.
The tears stopped flowing.
He felt dead as a bone.

Then a seed started growing
It changed him, you see.
Instead of wet tears
Came a glimmer of glee.

"What a fool you have been!"
Came a voice hot and red.
"You've wasted your time
Thinking YOU were the head!"

No sooner the thought
Than he was up in a flurry;
Making calls, making plans --
It was important to hurry.

In no time at all
He had found his dear wife;
Huddled in silence,
Next to a knife.

The knife put away,
He carried her out
And into a car
Then gave a big shout.

He found his dear kids,
Looking cautions and fearful;
Scared of their father,
For he seemed … rather peaceful!

They saw in his face
A glimmer of glee
That made no sense;
But they couldn't flee.

For a bubble of hope
Had welled up from inside:
His kids' and wife's eyes
Had opened quite wide.

"We're going away,"
He said with a grin.
"To a place we'll be safe;
To a place you've not been."

"It's a place in our minds"
He continued with mirth
"Where the pain is all gone,
It's a place of rebirth."

In silence they rode
Unknowing and numb
"Dad's gone crazy!" she whispered,
Pointing her thumb.

For an hour or more
They bounced down the road.
The sky became dark
Yet onward they rode.

An old barbed-wire fence
Lay sagging with age.
They hopped it with ease,
Feeling released from a cage.

They walked not for far
When the man spoke a word.
"Sit." he said with command
And everyone heard.

He pointed up high
To a star he had known
Since a boy on a farm;
His secret alone.

"The light from that point
Comes from a star long since gone.
It came from the past,
And it's terribly wrong."

"We think what we see
Is what is, and what's true;
But what we think doesn't count:
Just what we do."

"Our senses deceive
Our minds distort.
What we think has happened
Is a false report."

"The Buddha, Muhammad --
And Jesus, don't miss --
All recognized suffering
As leading to bliss."

On that one single night
In that field afar,
They sat looking upward
To that one distant star.

In silence they watched
The twinkling show,
Pondering pensively
Just where would they go?

All had changed.
They didn't know how;
But a new beginning
Was happening now.

And from that day forth
This family knew,
The secret that life
Would forever be new.