Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature. Over 16,000 daily subscribers. Over 7,000 archived posts.
Michael Simms: Sacred Sleep
My sleep is punctuated with terror and excursions into weirdness, and I usually wake in the dark hours, no doubt caused by my father waking me in the middle of the night when I was a child to discuss a minor sin I’d committed. If I weren’t alert enough to tell him what he wanted to hear, he would strike me without warning and walk away satisfied with the discipline he enforced in his prescription-induced rage. So, I’ve always slept with one eye open like a prey animal in its burrow peering into darkness. For Eva, who had loving parents, sleep is not a descent into madness but a flight on the back of a great bird headed for a distant valley where safety and serenity can always be found. I’d love to be like Merlin sleeping forever in a magical forest where his beautiful enchantress visits every evening. But no, my sleep’s the version where the Lady of the Lake throws Merlin in a pit and the Great Mage is never heard from again. No death’s dream for him, only long oblivion in the dark while night-worms crawl on his flesh. I remember as a boy escaping to the stables on a summer night. The moon shone down on the metal gate. Puppies lay in a furry mound, wrapped around each other in a thick disk of contentment while big dogs rested nearby. Horses stood in their stalls sleeping and later lying down, settling into straw to dream of whatever horses dream of when they’re protected and well-fed. I’ve read that whales can go a month without sleeping. Drifting on the waves with their pods, they take turns descending into slumber, pups dozing beside their mothers. Cuvier’s beaked whales can dive 10,000 feet into utter darkness and sleep for hours at a time without breathing. I’m lying in the darkness with my Eva and I’m thinking of the infinite space between waking and sleeping, how Black Elk traveled far from his body in a pure quest to save his people. He knew only in sleep are we fully aware, only in sleep can we let go of what we think we know is real, let the sharp edges fall away, only in sleep can we embrace our true selves. I believe if I surrender to loving this woman with my whole being and let nothing else touch my heart then whoever I may be or whatever I do or try to do my love will never be extinguished and I will find its likeness in all things and I will no longer seek peace because it is already mine.
Michael Simms is the founder and editor of Vox Populi. His latest collections of poems are American Ash and Nightjar (Ragged Sky, 2020, 2021).
Copyright 2021 Michael Simms. From Nightjar.
Vox Populi 
I love this poem. Love as salvation. Because it is.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Lisa!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is marvelous, stately in pacing. And those last two stanzas…
LikeLike
Thank you, Lex!
>
LikeLike
Even with its darkness, the light of love shines through this beautiful poem, Michael.
LikeLike
Thank you, Lisa!
M.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This one will stay with me, Michael. I understand it in so many ways. I just read it aloud to my wife, who wept. Thank you for this gift.
LikeLike
Thank you, George. I’m a big fan of your work, as you know…
LikeLike
My beloved and I often speak of artists who make great art out of their pain. Van Gogh. Smetana. Twain. Great comics like George Carlin and Lenny Bruce. You too have made great art out of your pain. I am awed by the accomplishment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a lovely thing to say, John. Thank you!
>
LikeLike
I love the way this poem moves through time and space.
LikeLike
Thank you, Barbara. I’m a big fan of your work.
LikeLike
Lovely richly -textured poem, Michael!
LikeLike
Thanks, Deborah!
>
LikeLike
Sleep used to be unequivocal for me— a refuge, before this latter and unforseen uncomfortability. I will keep the slumbering whales in my thoughts—perhaps my oft hard-won dreams. They are our opposite, wakefully recumbent, somnolently erect. How strange it all is in this world of effects.
LikeLike
What an interesting response to the poem, Sean!
LikeLike
thank you michael, this is beautiful and painful all at once: only in sleep can we let go of what we think
we know is real
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, Abby, I admire your passionate and inventive prose so much. You can’t know how much your praise means to me. Thank you!
>
LikeLike
Thanks Michael reality and dreams often merge in the pre dawn.. peace
LikeLike
Thank you, Peter!
>
LikeLike
oh, this poem, such weaving of personal story and myth and mysticism and the natural world and surrender … beautiful
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rosemerry, your praise is like a silk garment I’ll wear all day… thank you.
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh dear Mike. How I wish I could offer you the sleep of a whale like one would offer a bowl of good soup… But alas. A physician once told me “the body has its own memory too” when I told him that each night — at the same hour — I gasp awake…like you.
LikeLike
Oh yes, Laure-Anne, the body remembers. Eva and I often talk about the dark night of the soul… the terrors that come in the last hours before dawn.
>
LikeLike
What a wonderful poem, such amazing imagery. Sleep as a flight on the back of a great bird, the magical whales, then bringing all of us into the peace and love at the end of the poem.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, thank you, Valerie…
>
LikeLike
I am always humbled, when, in a somewhat random fashion, I click on one poem ignoring the rest, at least for the day, only to find a gem I was meant to receive. This is such a gem, and fortunately, I listened to Spirit, when it said, “pause and read this one, read it today” Thank you .
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much! I’m deeply honored.
>
LikeLike
“…
and I will find its likeness in all things
and I will no longer seek peace
because it is already mine.”
yesssss
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bless you, Rose Mary!
>
LikeLike
That’s lovely, Michael. So vulnerable.
LikeLike
Thanks, Kim!
M.
LikeLike
Beautiful poem, Michael! Thank you for posting it and all the daily gems you pluck for us! May 2023 bring you and Eva some well-earned joy. xceleste
>
LikeLike
Thanks, Celeste! It’s nice to hear from you.
LikeLike
A poignant reflectin with a way of seeking comfort. Thanks for sharing.
LikeLike
Thanks, John!
LikeLike
Oh, to be a sleeping whale…
LikeLiked by 1 person
A lovely thought, isn’t it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for this, Michael.
LikeLike
Thanks, Edison!
LikeLiked by 1 person