Tag: can’t sleep

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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And often, to fall asleep, I think of a great white bird. It is bigger than an airplane, its wings are wide and strong. I think that I am lying nestled in the hollow between one of the wings and the gentle great back, and I feel the wings very slowly lifting and falling as the bird carries me.

And on the back of this great white bird, with wise dark eyes and a noble long bill, I fly over the country. The feathers of the bird are downy, and keep me warm and dry. And below us the mountains and the rivers and oceans stretch along endlessly. There is a green, rolling patchwork of farms. And the wings beat beneath me.

— Lydia Millet, My Happy Life

Notes:

  • Book review of “My Happy Life” titled “Happy Talk” by Jennifer Reese, May 5, 2002, NY Times
  • Photo of Gull by Eric Kanigan, December 4, 2021 at Darien Beach.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Insomnia

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All over the world people can’t sleep.
In different times zones they’re lying awake
Bodies still, minds trudging along…
some are too cold, some too hot…
Some under bridges…
some hungry, some in pain…
Some get up
Others stay in bed
They eat oreos, or drink wine
Or both
Many read…
Some check their email
They try sleep tapes, hypnosis, drugs
They listen to their clocks tick…
hoping to catch a ride on the steady sleep breath of the other
to be carried like a seed on the body of one who is able.
Right now in Japan dawn is coming, and everyone who’s been up all night is relieved;
they can stop trying In Guatemala though the insomniacs are just getting started
and have the whole night ahead of them.
It’s like a wave at the baseball stadium,
hands around the world.
So here’s a prayer for the wakeful
The souls who can’t rest
as you lie with your eyes open
or closed
May something comfort you—a mockingbird, a breeze,
the smell of crushed mint
rain on the roof,
Chopin’s Nocturnes
your child’s birth
a kiss,
or even me—in my chilly kitchen
with my coat on—thinking of you

~Ellen Bass, from “Insomnia” in Mules of Love 

Photo: “Insomnia” by Alice Rose Photography. Poem, thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels)

So it has come to this

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black-butterfly-portrait

So it has come to this
insomnia at 3:15 A.M., 
the clock tolling its engine 
[…]
All night dark wings 
flopping in my heart. 
Each an ambition bird
[…]

~ Anne Sexton, The Ambition Bird, The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton

Notes: Poem Source – Didier Leclair.  Photo: Pause Between Thoughts

With Clanking Chains

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thinking-thoughts-tired-portrait

Saturday.
2:42 am.

Cohen:
Silence / and a deeper silence / when the crickets hesitate.

Montgomery:
With clanking chains. It must not be: this day, this hour.

Plath:
Alone, deepening.

Kafka:
What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense.

Duras:
My thoughts wear me out.

Prince:
Purple Rain.

Shakespeare:
O sleep, O gentle sleep / Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee / That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down / And steep my sense in forgetfulness?

Humphrey:
(Sleep) A proven capacity for endless resurrection out of nothing.

Give me sleep.
Give me resurrection.
Now.

Photo: Arturs Kondrats Photography via poly-gr