Sometimes I can’t sleep,
and it’s ok.

Moments within the past weeks
keep flowing:
D. talking, crying,
about sitting at the side
of her dying mother.
T. defending his art to the committee,
sitting on the floor, gesturing,
and I’m watching the light outside,
and his tattooed arm,
while the beaten-up paintings
on the white walls
ask about meaning.
And the sound of sandhill cranes
somewhere high above
in the vast December gloom.
And the call of unseen hawks,
the muffled beat of woodpeckers.
The other day there was a brown flash
of something running out of the barn,
so quick it might not have happened.
Sleep evades
while words whisper
to each other:
eloquence, untimely, fundamental,
unified, ajar.
The dark quiet distills weeks
into an essence, like morning light
on the bark of the giant beech
in the eroded ravine out back.
Years ago I read a question in a poem:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
I sit up in bed
and stare at the cat
staring at me.

Sometimes I can’t sleep,
and it’s wonderfully ok.