105 // to participate in the twists of another world
Asleep, originally uploaded by Zeb Andrews.
"Tossing and Turning" by John Updike
The spirit has infinite facets, but the body
confiningly few sides.
There is the left,
the right, the back, the belly, and tempting
in-betweens, northeasts and northwests,
that tip the heart and soon pinch circulation
in one or another arm.
Yet we turn each time
with fresh hope, believing that sleep
will visit us here, descending like an angel
down the angle our flesh's sextant sets,
tilted toward that unreachable star
hung in the night between our eyebrows, whence
dreams and good luck flow.
Uncross
your ankles. Unclench your philosophy.
This bed was invented by others; know we go
to sleep less to rest than to participate
in the twists of another world.
This churning is our journey.
It ends,
can only end, around a corner
we do not know
we are turning.
---
This resonated particularly with me as I have had a lot of trouble falling asleep lately, even more so than normal, and I had to laugh when he spoke of turning over "with new hope" every time that this time I'll actually fall asleep. But there's a million more things to love about this poem - the rhythm and the internal rhymes, the well-crafted phrases that dance in and out of physical and metaphysical, the parallel between sleeping and living... mmm. Poetry makes my heart sing.