Wonderful Nights with Insomnia

I haven't slept well these past 6 weeks.  A lot of life happening that has weighed on my mind, I guess.  

At my bedside I always have a book for reading just before going to sleep at night.  It stills my swirling mind.  So when I wake during the night and can't go back to sleep, my book is handy.  A week ago I finished my current book, so when I found myself with insomnia this past week, I took to poetry.

I love poetry.  I love books of poetry.  I so enjoy reading poetry, having someone read poetry to me, and even writing poetry.

This past week, I chose Rilke.  Rainier Maria Rilke is one of my favorite poets.  His poetry and prose is a lovely blend of intelligence, insight, and romance.

Here are a few of my favorites:

[I live my life in widening rings]

I live my life in widening rings

which spread over earth and sky.

I may not ever complete the last one,

but that is what I try.

I circle around God, the primordial tower,

and I circle ten thousand years long;

and I still don't know if I'm a falcon, a storm,

or an unfinished song.

For Hans Carossa

Losing too is still ours; and even forgetting

still has a shape in the kingdom of transformation.

When something's let go of, it circles; and though we are 

rarely the center

of the circle, it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous

curve.

Next is my all-time favorite Rilke poem:

[You who never arrived]

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you.  I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me--the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and un-
suspected turns in the path,

and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing.  An open window
in a country house--, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.  Streets that I chanced
upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back
my too-sudden image.  Who knows? perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening . . .

[Along the sun-drenched roadside, from the great]

Along the sun-drenched roadside, from the great

hollow half-treetrunk, which for generations

has been a trough, renewing in itself

an inch or two of rain, I satisfy

my thirst; taking the water's pristine coolness

into my whole body through my wrists.

Drinking would be too powerful, too clear;

but this unhurried gesture of restraint

fills my whole consciousness with shining water.

Thus, if you came, I could be satisfied

to let my hand rest lightly, for a moment,

lightly, upon your shoulder or your breast.

Insomnia can be wonderful at times.