From whiskey river:
A Remedy for Insomnia
Not sheep coming down the hills,
not cracks on the ceiling —
count the ones you loved,
the former tenants of dreams
who would keep you awake,
once meant the world to you,
rocked you in their arms,
those who loved you…
You will fall asleep, by dawn, in tears.
(Vera Pavlova, If There Is Something To Desire [source])
From that site’s archive (whiskey river’s commonplace book):
Too Easy: to Write of Miracles
Too easy: to write of miracles, dreams where the famous give
mysterious utterance to silent truth;
to confuse snow with the stars,
simulate a star’s fantastic wisdom.Easy like the willow to lament,
rant in trampled roads where pools
are red with sorrowful fires, and sullen rain
drips from the willows’ ornamental leaves;
or die in words and angrily turn
to pace like ghosts about the walls of war.But difficult when, innocent and cold,
day, a bird over a hill, flies in
— resolving anguish to a strange perspective,
a scene within a marble; returning
the brilliant shower of coloured dreams to dust,
a smell of fireworks lingering by canals
on autumn evenings — difficult to write
of the real image, real hand, the heartDream a Little Dream of Me
of day or autumn beating steadily:
to speak of human gestures, clarify
all the context of a simple phrase
— the hour, the shadow, the fire,
the loaf on a bare table.Dream a Little Dream of MeHard, under the honest sun, to weigh
a word until it balances with love —
burden of happiness on fearful shoulders;
in the ease of daylight to discover
what measure has its music, and achieve
the unhaunted country of the final poem.
(Denise Levertov, Sicily, 1948 [source])
