Can't sleep. More poetry
Has my Heart Gone to Sleep? by Antonio Machado
Has my heart gone to sleep?
Have the beehives of my dreams
stopped working, the waterwheel
of the mind run dry,
scoops turning empty,
only shadow inside?
No, my heart is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
Not asleep, not dreaming-
its eyes are opened wide
watching distant signals, listening
on the rim of vast silence.
Translated by Alan S. Trueblood
Lying in Me by Anna Akhmatova
Lying in me, as though it were a white
Stone in the depths of a well, is one
Memory that I cannot, will not, fight:
It is happiness, and it is pain.
Anyone looking straight into my eyes
Could not help seeing it, and could not fail
To become thoughtful, more sad and quiet
Than if he were listening to some tragic tale.
I know the gods changed people into things,
Leaving their consciousness alive and free.
To keep alive the wonder of suffering,
You have been metamorphosed into me.
A Cicada Shell by Matsuo Basho
A cicada shell;
it sang itself
utterly away.
Translated by R.H. Blyth