The Loon
by: Mary Oliver
Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive
strikes me from sleep, and I rise
from the comfortable bed and go
to another room, where my books are lined up
in their neat and colorful rows. How
magical they are! I choose one
and open it. Soon
I have wandered in over the waves of the words
to the temple of thought.
And then I hear
outside, over the actual waves, the small,
perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,
and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out
to the fading moon, to the pink flush
swelling in the east that, soon,
will become the long, reasonable day.
Inside the house
it is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight
in which I am sitting.
I do not close the book,
Neither, for a long while, do I read on.
Like Oliver in the poem, I suffer from insomnia. Often. My squirrel brain won't turn off at night until late. Then I wake long before daylight with the same thoughts running up and down the trees in my head, and I'm even more tired than when I closed my eyes.
I met a poet friend this morning to do some writing. Over the last couple weeks, I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to do much poeming. I've been a little . . . overwhelmed with life. Too much going on. Currently, I'm being pulled in several directions at once, and I can't work up a whole lot of enthusiasm for any of those directions.
After writing this a.m. with my friend, I did feel a little more centered. Like I could face the day without locking myself in the bathroom for a quiet panic attack. My friend is always good for helping me find balance.
I'm not out of the woods, and the squirrel in my skull is still chattering away. However, my poet friend said to me as I was leaving her house, "I'm so glad you have Mary Oliver to keep you company."
Mary does have a way of putting Saint Marty's life into perspective.
Blue Jay
by: Martin Achatz
Sleep and I have never been
best friends, more like neighbors
who greet each other at the end
of a work day, both of us
in our driveways, talking weather,
how the summer is quickly tipping
toward autumn. In early morning dark,
I sit on my couch, stare out the living
room window at the sleeping world.
Night stretches
on like some black Lake Superior,
no horizon in sight. Then,
as light finally begins to break
open the heavens, a blue jay flits
into a pine, sits there, gazes at me.
I can almost see myself in the onyx
of his eyes, as if I'm some painting
he's come to admire. He shifts his head,
regards me from several angles, contemplating,
meditating, like I'm the answer
to his blue jay prayer.
Or he's the answer to mine.
