Like Falling Asleep

Like Falling Asleep

(“The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.” Isaiah 32:17)

I heard someone say she fell in love with him like falling asleep:
slowly at first and then all of a sudden. This sleep has been my
waking,
and the silence of my dreams the making
of grains of sand tracked into the bed
by the dogs after their romp at the beach.

Yet the more I sleep the more dreary I become,
repeating weary mistakes I made before the face of one
who picked out each misdeed like cat hair on the carpet.

There was never peace as long as dander remained
on the surface or on the air. There never was quiet
as long as one word, deemed out of place, remained
in the apprentice’s vocabulary.

A rest remains. An assignment blinks--low focus,
high fidelity—upon the fog which remains on the
bogs of faint light’s later life.

A rest remains. Destiny framed by a loving call,
(not strict equipment code after all). Though first and much,
or last and minute, much waits the dreams of those who,
sleeping unoccupied by regret’s dark ride,
awake to begin,

Again.