Sleepless Night
A long, sleepless night:My mind wanders far awayIn search of answers
Another shootingMore death, violence,And tears:Will it ever end?
Life, love, death,A never-ending cycle -Is this trulyAll there is?
Good and evilThere is no such thing:We all hide monstersIn our hearts
The clock strikes midnightShadows spread across the walls:Time waits for no one
Silence surrounds me,An ocean ofNothingnessI cannot escape
My heart aches -I loved her moreThan words can sayBut it was not enough
Moving onIs a long and winding road:I must findMy own way home
A warm summer breezeWhispering through the treetopsLike a lover's sigh
Another ChristmasBright lights shiningOn the tree:It is not the same
Morning:Haze hangs in the airWhile music driftsFrom somewhere far away
In the distanceA yellow sunBegins to rise:At last I find rest
Birds sing in the treesChildren laugh and play outside:Life goes on once more
I've been working on this poem for a few days and finished it while I was still awake early this morning. I've been feeling quite down the closer it's got to Christmas; I guess I've had a lot on my mind after an eventful year and writing this poem has helped me to sort through a lot of what I've been feeling, as well as trying to make sense of the terrible events in Connecticut from earlier this week as well.
The poem is inspired by a lot of things - the shooting in Connecticut, the end of a recent relationship, my grandmother dying - but it's primarily meant as a collection of thoughts and feelings, the kind of thoughts that enter your mind in the middle of the night when you can't sleep and your mind just wanders. In that way it's also a bit of a companion piece to another poem I wrote, The Sound of Midnight, which explored the same idea at a different point in my life.
The photo is a photo I took of a crescent moon last year. I haven't taken many photos of the moon as it's one of the more difficult subjects to capture as it's so bright and you need a very long lens to capture it properly. This was actually the first shot I took… not too bad for a first try. I'll have to take some more at some stage now that I know what to do!
Photo © CJ Levinson 2011-12Poem licenced under Creative Commons