Sleep

I woke up really early this morning and lay in bed, my eyes half-closed. I have the intention to get up and meditate, but it's really only an intention today. I watch the sunlight struggle through the hedge that rises outside the window and let the blue in the room rest lightly. I doze and wake and look at the clock and doze some more.

I'm grateful for sleep and for the ease with which I do rest.

Here's a poem from John Updike. I love the ending.


Tossing and Turning

The spirit has infinite facets, but the body
confiningly few sides.
There is the left,
the right, the back, the belly, and tempting
in-betweens, northeasts and northwests,
that tip the heart and soon pinch circulation
in one or another arm.
Yet we turn each time
with fresh hope, believing that sleep
will visit us here, descending like an angel
down the angle our flesh's sextant sets,
tilted toward that unreachable star
hung in the night between our eyebrows, whence
dreams and good luck flow.
Uncross
your ankles. Unclench your philosophy.
This bed was invented by others; know we go
to sleep less to rest than to participate
in the twists of another world.
This churning is our journey.
It ends,
can only end, around a corner
we do not know
we are turning.