Before Fitful Sleep

Before Fitful Sleep

(“Even the one who has strength of heart like the heart of a lion will be afraid.” 2 Samuel 17:10a)

It was the last thing I thought before fitful sleep,
the last wheelbarrow that kept cycling from load to load,
and my breathing followed the pace, my heart left little space
for calmer dreams to prevail. I knew I was certain to fail;
all I thought had been accomplished over ten or fifteen years
was upended as the gunfire encroached from every direction.

I liked my pillows flat as tortillas once,
for years in fact, since I was a kid I slid my hand beneath
the cold pillowcase and listened to the pulse thumping in my head.
But now I need them fluffy. I cannot pinpoint the date or the year,
but I think it started when I discovered thin pillows were
fragile defenses against the armaments of recycling thoughts.

Long thoughts with no side streets, no turn-offs to a quieter avenue;
wrong thoughts with no return or redemption, a sorry state for weary mind;
strong thoughts with no silencers, so loud I’m sure my eyelids twitched morse code;
thoughts that did not belong to my quieter wishes. Rarely, sparely a
plainsong of space between breaths left enough calm
that I could sleep without feeling the hypocrite.

I’m older than the fitful nights, and stay up later because
once slumber greets waking I’m met with shaking pain that
has nailed my head dead-ended so I stumble before getting out
of bed.

None know my pain (oh, I must remind myself, and any reader,
I am no whiner, no self-repeater), my face sometimes shows the pain,
but mostly it has grown back to its original dimensions; a thin smile and
eyes slightly bowed. I admit my feet have slipped from the pedal,
and my life and my work coast hazily, and my life and my work
appear to lazily pull to a stop along the shoulder. And my life
and my work
have suffered from so many miles without attention
and a cracked head that has lost all compression.

And so you know, a bit narrow, or more obtuse,
the harrowing tale of a lion-heart that hid well
the dreams of night and the schemes of day;
and who hates excuses, and sings the blues by heart.

But my final stanza, (for the safety of my readers)
still glorifies the Lion who roars in Love-and-Truth,
and will, in fortune’s reversal, soon remove the thorn
that has beset my soul, while the small circle of friends
is found unbroken.