Variation on the word sleep

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary

~ Margaret Atwood

I wasn’t well today and slept most of the day. Now I’m awake and I remember the above poem. I used to read a lot of poetry. In fact I looked forward to English class as a student so we could read and dissect another poem. Poems are powerful. They can invoke feelings or say things that speak to you in a clearer way than the directly spoken words people use when conversing.

The last paragraph. How beautiful, how powerful. Saying that you want to be as necessary to another’s life as air is, but at the same time, unnoticed. Unnoticed in that you don’t bring burden or effort, but that being with you, is effortless.

My poems have meaning too, but I am not as good at hiding the meaning within subtle alliterations and similes. It’s a way of expressing with words that which I can never say out loud. I had a dream today.  My Mum was standing next to my bed. Speaking urgently. I couldn’t hear. I kept asking how did she get here? It felt so real. She was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t make out the words. Just recognised her voice.

Sleep, bitter sweet

Fleeting, yet hours have passed

 

Thoughts decide to overwhelm

When dreams wish to rule

A nightmare intrudes unexpectedly

A walk, a terror, a word

A scream that never resounds

A person standing next to your bed

Urgent message

Not intended to be heard

But felt, I did

What is the meaning of our dreams?

Merely a mirage of our deepest

hopes and fears