Tag Archives: poems

asleep?

 

Every so often, I awaken and find

lynnunderwood.spirconnect-flame2dThe world both vivid and lit, each element

–far as I can tell—lit from within. And yes,

like you, I may have assumed this radiance

to be a trick of morning sun upon the sea,

or the fortunate effect of ambient or

of manufactured light, of dumb or less

dumb luck….

I may have been jogging, or

yammering on before a yawning class,

writing something or other on the blackboard.

I may have appeared more or less awake

right along, but suddenly, with little warning, I become

for the moment more fully awake, and I see

that there—along the path, among the bracken

or the pine, or just there, only now opening

within each forlorn face before me—a glistening,

a quality, a presence of light so profound

I can’t but close my eyes to see.

 

Excerpt from the poem Somnambulant, by Scott Cairns, from Idiot Psalms: New Poems (Paraclete Press, 2014)