Insomnia I

Some nights it's bound to be your best way out,

When nightmare is the short end of the stick,

When sleep is a part of town where it's not safe

To walk at night, when waking is the only way

You have of distancing your wretched dead,

A growing crowd, and escaping out of their

Time into yours for another little while;

Then pass ghostly, a planet in the house

Never observed, among the sleeping rooms

Where children dream themselves, and thence go down

Into the empty domain where daylight reigned;

Reward yourself with drink and a book to read,

A mystery, for its elusive gift

Of reassurance against the hour of death.

Order your heart about: Stop doing that!

And get the world to be secular again.

Then, when you know who done it, turn out the light,

And quietly in darkness, in moonlight, or snowlight

Reflective, listen to the whistling earth

In its backspin trajectory around the sun

That makes the planets sometimes retrograde

And brings the cold forgiveness of the dawn

Whose light extinguishes all stars but one.