I sleep. I sleep and sleep and sleep
like a bear, like a snail, like a bee,
I sleep until the sun finally slips
above the riverside cliffs
and enters my bed like
a lover. I do not open my eyes,
but the light and warmth
slide into me anyway
as if all of me were waiting,
waiting to be entered by light.
And I have been waiting—
which I might have denied,
snuggled in deep as I was,
drowsy and night-drunk,
certain of my joy in the dark,
but oh, such a way to wake,
discovered by the light of a star
as it kisses my face and strokes
my skin, offering to give me everything
if only I open more.
Posts Tagged ‘sleep’
On the Winter Solstice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged sleep, sunshine, winter solstice on December 22, 2024| 1 Comment »
One Wondering About All that Goes Unheard
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, night, sleep, temple on September 30, 2024| 4 Comments »
in the temple of night
the only audible benediction
sweet hymn of your breath
After the Nightmare
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, love, nightmare, sleep, softness, tenderness on March 10, 2024| 2 Comments »
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.
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.
La Berceuse
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, inner child, Kayleen Asbo, lullaby, sleep, Van Gogh, vulnerability on May 12, 2022| 10 Comments »
inspired by “La Berceuse” by Vincent van Gogh and a song by the same name by Kayleen Asbo, with a line from Paul Gaugin
There is, inside all of us,
all of us, all of us,
a child who longs
to be rocked, and rocked,
a soul child who longs
for the old sense of cradling,
a soul infant, fragile,
so green, so new,
who knows only to trust
that someone, someone,
peaceful and still,
someone with patience
and infinite calm,
with a quiet face
and sober eyes
will sit beside us
in heavy-lidded moments
when we glide defenseless
on dim shores of dreams,
yes, someone, someone,
will watch us, will watch,
will keep watch and will usher us
slowly to sleep,
to sleep, though we fight it,
oh shhhh, shhhhh.
Can you feel it, the rocking,
the rocking, the rocking,
can you feel it, the rocking,
that never stops?
Oh bless the hand,
the patient hand,
oh bless the hand
that rocks.
In Those Quiet Hours
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged mother, night, reframe, sleep, son on December 29, 2021| 26 Comments »
For two weeks after he died,
I’d fall asleep exhausted
only to wake just past midnight.
Desperate, I’d claw at sleep,
frantic to catch it and clutch it,
but always it slipped my grasp
and I’d lie awake till morning.
My friend suggested
I reframe those sleepless hours
as a sacred time, an intimate,
personal quiet time. Not a problem.
Not something to be treated.
Not something to be feared.
That night, as I emerged from sleep,
dreams dripping from me like water,
I did not resist the waking.
Instead, eyes closed, heart open,
still lying in bed, I said,
I love you, Finn. I miss you, sweetheart.
And woke on the shore of morning.
Ever since, it happens just like this—
when I slip from sleep,
I tell my son I love him
and slide unknowingly
back into the tide of dreams.
How many hundreds of times
when he was young, did I go to him
when he cried out in the night?
I’d press my palms against his chest
until his breath was a skiff for dreams.
Years later, though I can’t feel his hands,
though I don’t hear the lullaby of his breath,
somehow he arrives to comfort me.
And though I don’t hear him say
the words I’d always say to him,
I feel them float above me like a blanket,
warm in the cool night air—
Shhh. I’m here. It’s okay. I’m here.
With the Stars All Around
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, control, dream, letting go, life, sleep, trust on August 4, 2021| 5 Comments »
I wish you the peace of sleep,
your breath a canoe
that carries you
toward the next moment
without any need
for you to touch the oars.
How easily you arrive.
Oh, to trust the world like that—
trust you will be carried,
not just in sleep,
but in waking dreams,
trust no matter how high the waves,
the skiff of grace
has a seat for you.
And oh, to let go of the oars—
there is no steering
toward what comes next.
Things to Do While Not Asleep
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awake, night, sleep on October 21, 2020| 4 Comments »
Check the time. Reach for scraps of the dream you just woke from.
Close your eyes again. Remind yourself of studies that say
you’re still getting rest even if you feel awake. Curse the studies.
Curse the awakeness. Notice how cursing wakes you even more.
Toss. Count breaths of the person sleeping next to you.
Tell yourself not to be resentful of them, though you are.
Touch your hand to the sleep heavy weight of their leg. Breathe.
Try not to remember something terrible you did long ago.
Perseverate on the details. Wish you could apologize,
though you’ve long since forgotten the names.
Determine that starting tomorrow morning you will be a better person
in a belated attempt to atone for past mistakes.
Tell yourself not to look at the clock again. Look at the clock again.
Calculate to the minute how long you’ve been awake. Worry
about tomorrow. Worry about your kids. Worry about the country.
Worry that you worry too much. Refuse to look at the clock.
There is a lake in the night, dark and deep. Feel yourself held by it,
as if you are floating. As if the night buoys you, cradles you like a mother.
Miss your mother. Take a few strokes in the night lake. Notice
how quiet it is. Feel yourself slip beneath its surface.
When the light comes, swim toward the light.
While I Was Sleeping
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, dream, poem, poetry, sleep on September 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »
And while I was sleeping, dreaming yet again
of being on stage without knowing my lines,
my erector spinae muscles decided to wrestle
with bears and my rhomboids crash landed
after the parachute didn’t open. My levator
scapulae muscles lifted ten refrigerators and
my trapezii danced in stilettos for hours. Is it any wonder
I woke unable to move my neck? There are days
we realize just how grateful we are for parts
of the body we never could name
until today the bodyworker wrote them down,
how lucky we are to take them for granted.
There are days when we wake and realize
how much happens in our sleep. There are days
we think how much easier it would be
to just end up on a stage not knowing
our lines. Darn those bears. Darn those high heels.
Two Things I Would Give You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, giving, poem, poetry, purpose, sleep on September 18, 2019| 7 Comments »
Sleep, of course. Long,
uninterrupted hours of sleep.
For a week. For a month.
For a year. You’d just put your head
on the pillow, and sleep
would come meet you
like a devoted friend, or like
a dog that will come whenever you call,
and snuggle with you all night.
And then, when you woke,
I would give you the certainty
that life is worth waking for,
that you are beloved,
that everything you do
makes a difference, and
by everything, I mean everything.
One Resistance
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, sleep on July 7, 2019| 2 Comments »
Forgiveness 101
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, poem, poetry, sleep on February 21, 2019| 7 Comments »
The first person I forgive today is myself
for staying up too late last night—how
I loved reading into the late hours, the story
crooking its finger at me, tethering me
to its pages. What good does it do
to call myself stupid, to lash out at the part of me
who thrives on those slender moments
when I am alone and the house is quiet
and I am the sister of words. No, better to tell
that late night reader that I’m tired.
Better to smile at her, though she thwarts
the morning me who loves to rise feeling rested.
She does not apologize. I know I will have
to forgive her again. Somehow, when I start
with myself, it makes it easier all day long
to practice forgiveness for others—
the slow drivers, the complainers, the bullies,
the pouters. They probably have happier,
calmer, more rational selves, too,
that they are also thwarting. All day I practice seeing
the heart of a person. All day, when I yawn, I smile.