Looking for Rest

I don't really know where my poems come from sometimes. Of course, there are times when I'm looking around, see something beautiful and say to myself, "Hey, I want to write about that," or something along those strikingly unique lines. In this case, however, I think I was just tired, but had little desire to sleep, and so I put pen to paper and started wondering about sleep itself...


Sleep is a comfort.
She comes like a feather
That falls from the sky.
She's a mother
Embracing her surrogate children,
Soft striving to shield them from pain,
Or at least dull the bite
Of the real.

But like a mad nursemaid,
She smothers with care,
Gives poison in medicine's stead.
For dreams are not always escapes,
But sometimes prove dungeons
Till thrice blessed daylight
Or morning's routine
Breaks her chains.

Yet is this new dark
Any better?

But then I lean over,
Hand out
And I feel the thump-thump of love's heart,
See her stir
Feel the touch of her smile on my soul.
It's then that I know that I love and am loved,
And that waking or sleeping,
Love holds me always.