I Do Not Sleep For Sleep Is Like The Wind And Trees Amazed

I do not sleep for sleep is like the wind and trees amazed
by sleep's persuasive gaze

and sleep insists
inside a minor insect's cochlea:

do not you sleep, do not you sleep? But is itself this seed
consumed unseen.

In glistening jelly themes and hollower than Appalachian mines
among pines,

my praise, applause, my themes, my subtle worms combine.

When moon a world-dividing language sings,
above the hook-and-ladder's dipthonged, drunken, ruby fountain sounds,

such is my state, my stateless mind—
widowed turtle or green mother in some shady grove,

lost in her native tongue.

"I Do Not Sleep For Sleep Is Like The Wind And Trees Amazed" by Miranda Field. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of the author.