After Midnight

Insomnia tears a hole in the night

And I crawl through it

To a place where the 

Relentless rain on my roof

Becomes a river

And the dark shapes in my room

Become boulders and trees

Full of spirits

Bound in memory

Crystallized, layered,

Hardened

By heat, pressure, years.

The river rises and falls

Rages and retreats

These trees, these stones

Hold my history, house my soul

Cracked open

By heat and by cold

Love and indifference

True nature revealed

Light chasing darkness

Watery time

Softening and rearranging life

Season after season.

I pull a mantle of memory

Over my shoulders:

A hard man

Warm skin, a tender center

The brush of eyelashes

Promises made

Promises broken

Desire—

A wish

For the sighing wind and rain

To rise and fall

Like a cleansing breath

That exhales the past

Draws in peace

Finds a way

Back to  sleep.

Comments

[Neil]

Beautiful.

[Chris]

I'm struggling with insomnia tonight. How appropriate that I would read this. Your ending wish is my wish. Beautiful poem.

[Kelby]

I love it and boy can I ever relate.

[Kim Nelson]

Several nights each week I awaken and spend two or three hours in congress with myself. I read, write, sip a hot drink, and then head back to bed when sleep beckons. Rather than bemoaning sleeplessness, I've learned to see it as a gift of enjoyable time.

[V-Grrrl]

I accept insomnia as part of my life, and it is a time for being in congress with myself, Kim, but I never have the urge to get out of bed and do anything. Mostly I visit with the Spirits of the past and the present. I hold people in my thoughts and long to be held by them. I have jewelry given to me by some of the people that love me and that I trust, and sometimes I go to bed with it so I have some physical connection to them in the darkest hours of the night.

[Jennifer H]

Sigh. This is gorgeous. (Leave it to you to make insomnia look beautiful...)

[littlepurplecow]

I so love your poetry.