As if the whole world depended on it
I nestled deeper into your warmth,
made myself soft as morning light,
soft as a lullaby, softer than that,
as if wars could be stopped and
peace achieved if only I could
make of my flesh a place so safe
you could sleep.
Posts Tagged ‘sleep’
After the Nightmare
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, love, nightmare, sleep, softness, tenderness on March 10, 2024| 2 Comments »
Midnight Storm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dreams vs. reality, lover, nightmare, reality, sleep, storm on January 27, 2024| 4 Comments »
heart thumping fast
as windshield wipers
attempting to keep
the vision clear
in a hurricane,
oh love,
lay your sleep-warm hand
on my sleep-warm leg,
remind me what is dream,
what is real
Reframe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awake, Eva Cassidy, insomnia, sleep, song on January 16, 2024| 8 Comments »
Some sleepless nights I imagine
Eva Cassidy might arrive in my room
with her old guitar and she’d sing to me,
her haunting notes draping
the air above me
like a humble and much loved quilt,
and I would curl little girl-like
into her lush and love-strung tones,
her clear voice a pure bell
ringing every jumbled thing
from my worry-cluttered mind.
I’d probably try to resist closing
my heavy lidded eyes.
What a gift it would be then
to stay awake.
Hurkle-durkle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, contentment, laziness, sleep, words on August 3, 2023| 10 Comments »
(v.) to lie in bed for a long time, to lounge around
When the eyes decide
to stay closed.
Though it’s light.
Though dark tea
and blue skies await.
Though there’s music to hear
and books to read,
and sugar peas fresh on the vine,
still the eyes decide
to be closed is divine.
And then there’s the warmth
of the bed, the perfect
weight of soft sheets,
the way the blood
has transformed into honey
and the limbs now curl
so perfectly into the perfectly
sleep-drunk, ease-heavy body.
When there’s work and a host
of sparkling to-dos,
but all the eyes want
is to stay closed,
to sail on the sweet ship
of near-sleep just a few,
just a few more,
just a few …
The Grown Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, sleep, touch, waking on June 23, 2023| 7 Comments »
Before my eyes are open,
I reach across the bed
to find my mother’s arm
atop the comforter
still heavy with sleep.
I settle my fingers there
like a butterfly landing
on a flower the same color
as its wings. Grateful
for this simple proof
she is here, soft and breathing
beside me, I fall back asleep,
my hand still touching her.
Long after we wake,
I still feel it in my hand,
not her arm itself,
but the reaching.
Before the Wings Appear
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, dreams, mother, sleep, touch, vulnerability on June 3, 2023| 5 Comments »
for my daughter
“Snuggle,” she said,
a two-syllable passport
to another world—
the world in which
she is more dream
than mask, more breath
than task, her softness
inviting my softness,
and I slipped beside
her dream-scented body
and curled myself
into her shape,
one arm draped
across her weight,
and matched my inhale
to her inhale, matched
my every exhale to hers
and listened as once again
sleep took her,
and she was not curious,
not smart, not funny,
not brave, but so deeply
herself, and how could I not
fall deeper in love,
a pilgrim in this realm
of sweet defenselessness,
the silken luff of our breaths
weaving around us
like a cocoon.
Some Mornings
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bud, morning, sleep, waking on June 1, 2023| 6 Comments »
Before the eyes are open
but after the body wakes,
there is that gentle interlude
when the scent of the dream
lingers like lavender incense
and light enters the body
through the skin and there is
enough awareness to fall in love
with this moment but not enough
agency to stay in or to leave—
I imagine it’s what it’s like to be a bud,
to remain folded in on the darkling magic
until, like soft petals, the eyelids
can’t help but unfold
and the irises sip at the light
and half of the soul angles back
toward the dreamworld,
the other half opens toward life.
By the Light of the Moon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, long marriage, sleep on May 10, 2023| 11 Comments »
Such tender choreography,
the way we fall asleep,
our bodies quiet beside each other,
my hand a bird inside the nest of your hand,
and then, when you turn to one side
my body, even in sleep, will turn to curl
with yours. And later, we are again like two stems,
like two wicks, like twin streams touching.
I don’t understand how it is
our bodies know to move, to curve,
to find each other in the dark. I only know
I am grateful for these night hours
when flesh is soft and full of dream
and trust is a sweet and blooming thing
and there is a beauty that no one else sees
as we turn again, turn again.
The Call
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awakening, bird, dawn, geese, messenger, sleep, waking on April 26, 2023| 4 Comments »
Dawn, and the geese announce
their landing on the pond—
and though the reluctant body says sleep,
the heart rouses to attend their arrival.
So many awakenings seem to happen like this:
when I feel least ready, least willing, most averse,
something demands I rise—
something strident, insistent, wildly alive,
saying, Now! It’s time! You’re here.
Let Awake Be Awake
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged let x equal x, sleep, sleeplessness on March 11, 2023| 11 Comments »
Oh to wake in the middle of the night
and not wish to be asleep. To not wish
for anything but what is, which is,
in this moment, being awake.
To let the mind wander
because that is what the mind is doing.
To let the heart clench around its losses
because that is what a heart does.
Being awake in the middle
of the night is teaching me
to be so gentle with myself, to be
with what is and do nothing about it.
To not turn on the light. To let the dark
be dark. To let what is awake be awake.
To let what aches ache. To feel the deep peace
of not trying to anything. To meet
the moment as it is, as inevitable as dawn,
as loyal, as changing as wind.