NOR MINE TO SLEEP

Once upon a time, I read that insomniacs keep the sleeping world from disincorporating (tho the description was surely more prosaic.) 

I have a clock in my bedroom which does not glow, so when I wake, I’ve no ideas on the time. I flick the button & a blue flash lights, a bolt of pulling me from any thought of sleep; but I must know the hour. Twelve after midnight: time to write.

Recently, I “found” seven grandmothers for my walls – me, who had no grandparents whom I knew. These are women of powerful profile, women of flowing/flown hair from which eagle feathers rise in halo, or drift in unheard winds. I made a Council on my wall, replacing my Vision Board, a grace gathered of wisdom. I put away my nightlight. The silken darkness woke them. Tho  quiet til now, I feel I shall hear more, soft sibilants in a tongue far from my native, but conversation / communication nonetheless. This is the first in the “Messages from My Mothers” Series.

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NOR MINE TO SLEEP WHEN WHISPERS WAKE ME WISE

I rise to midnight

Wakeful & alone

My life unsung, is flaring to a tone

Unwrapped & watchful,

Barefoot & outside

A shawl to cut the chill

Of night alive.

I wait on words

They rise to overfill

To flow away to rivers, all downhill

These are my true love

Ever, thus, my world:

A child’s hand in fist I might uncurl

To find surprises hidden from the day

My heart sees through all blackness in this place,

A gift to share with all, with sky so dark

Around a glowing moon I set my spark

I write an old September, or a June

One day past full, a dimming, tonsured moon…

The pages in the journal start to fill

For sleep eludes creation as I write…

In daylight worlds, a creature of tonight

Lit from within, the certain glow undimmed

I am forgiven every time I’ve sinned

The Muse awakes, she stirs inside my soul

I scattered during sleep; she knits me whole.

These folded-over pages must unfurl

A child’s fist, I open & uncurl

I see you in the distance of my mind

You are not mine, a message so unkind.

Yet knowing you, I never can be blind.

Your eyes see far beyond a simple rhyme.

As words arise, insistent of their way

These messages in darkness filled by day

With chorus/blessing both, I busy out

When nightfall sleeps, I rise to be about

My muse’s business, all there is to say

O’erflows my heart, my mind up & away

I cannot think, for caught up in this flow

Of all but poem, resting in its glow

The world, unfinished, lest I write some more

Insomnia insistent at the door.

My duties crowd around me; I don’t care

For words all dance about me in the air.

I breathe them in & write them in release

My pen, my soul, my ever-loving peace

There are no hours when I sit to scribe

These poems are my fam’ly, art & tribe

So, hear me Moon – before you fade & fly

These words may live beyond the day I die

I shall return, in line & open verse

A value far beyond that in my purse

This ink, my blood, an overlighting world

A child’s fisted hand you have uncurled

This is as much a river to the sea

My heaven at our door, these words are me

As others live for love & duty sure

I live to write. The muse is at my door

I bid her enter, take a seat & share

She takes up my most comfortable chair

And makes of it a jeweled & shining throne.

I write, & I am suddenly to home.

My life uncircumcised, creation swells

Where others sleep at midnight, I hear bells:

My seven elders whisper from the wall

Tho no one else can hear them, I am called

For all my lives are brought about by words

My mind defrocked, unfeathered, undeterred

My dreams can wait til daylight in the world

A child’s fist, the words inside, uncurled.