Finding My Way to Quieter Shores

Sleep is staying away tonight and so, here I am,
sitting at my table before a dark and starless window,
finding small pieces of beauty through poetry and music,
though it seems rather sad at the edges.
The wind pushes at the corners of the house,
mimicking the ocean, the rise and fall of lesser tides
on this dark sea of another long night.

It reminds me of the time I spent
last spring, asleep at the edge of the ocean,
the waves below my bedroom window
on those New England shores.
Here, next to the woods, I imagine the deer
out amongst the pines, their little group all bedded down,
lulled to sleep by half-full moons, sentries all around.

Moving from one thing to the next,
I wait for sleep to come, not knowing what I'm looking for
until I find it: the image in a restless dream,
the poem set to music, the stolen child looks back,
portending the poignant moment
when life itself went crazy
and her small world changed forever.







I wanted to write down my thoughts in the usual form and context, but the words wouldn't let me. They kept wanting to form themselves into poetry. So, finally I let them. Here is what I had found and was attempting to respond to:  The Waterboys and William Butler Yeats,  "The Stolen Child."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqAyfueYtT0


The photo is mine: the Atlantic Ocean at daybreak