Tag Archives: sleep

“Sleep” – Jorge Luis Borges

If sleep is truce, as it is sometimes said,
a pure time for the mind to rest and heal,
why, when they suddenly wake you, do you feel
that they have stolen everything you had?

Why is it so sad to be awake at dawn?
It strips us of a gift so strange, so deep,
it can be remembered only in half-sleep,
moments of drowsiness that gild and adorn.

The waking mind with dreams, which may well be
but broken images of the night’s treasure,
a timeless world that has no name or measure
and breaks up in the mirrors of the day.

Who will you be tonight, in the dark thrall
of sleep, when you have slipped across its wall?

“Night Text” – Sarah Maclay

NIGHT TEXT

Let’s imagine I’m translating something to you–
you, asleep, or sleepless and naming
that third place–between–

with the tips of your tapering fingers–

I don’t know the language.
It bends.

In the mind–in that strangely shared chamber–
that is, I mean, in your hands,

where you show me those scenes of confusion and flight
with such intimacy, and don’t know it–

even sans color, sans liquor, sans shape,
we are twins. Fraternal. Unknown.

The moon, invasive, huge,
lunging in through the windows,
makes no exceptions–

It’s true: it will never happen / you’d be surprised.

Insomnia – Linda Pastan

I remember when my body

was a friend,

when sleep like a good dog

came when summoned.

The door to the future

had not started to shut,

and lying on my back

between cold sheets

did not feel

like a rehearsal.

Now what light is left

comes up—a stain in the east,

and sleep, reluctant

as a busy doctor,

gives me a little

of its time.

from The Virginia Quarterly Review