{"id":1522,"date":"2008-12-05T00:50:12","date_gmt":"2008-12-05T06:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1522"},"modified":"2008-12-05T00:53:46","modified_gmt":"2008-12-05T06:53:46","slug":"poetry-friday-i-take-my-waking-slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1522","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: I take my waking slow"},"content":{"rendered":"

*yawn*Here’s the thing about insomnia: it doesn’t just make you tired. It shades everything with a hint of the surreal. After enough nights of lying there watching the hours blink by on the alarm clock, the boundaries between awake and asleep get blurry. I’ll glance at the time on the computer screen at work and realize I have no idea what I’ve been doing for the past hour. I’ll be reading on the couch and doze off, continuing the story in a dream, then wake up and wonder why the story I’m reading doesn’t make sense anymore. I feel a little like Billy Pilgrim<\/strong><\/a>, like I’ve come unstuck in time.<\/p>\n

I don’t mean to whine – I know my circadian rhythm will settle down eventually. This is just one of those things I’m prone to. Sometimes I get bouts of insomnia when I’m worried or excited about something, and I can’t get my brain to shut up long enough for me to fall asleep. Sometimes it seems to happen for no reason at all. But I think this time it was set off by crossing the international date line a couple of times within a week – my sleep cycle was totally messed up, and I haven’t managed to get it back on track yet. But it’ll pass.<\/p>\n

Lines from this poem (a villanelle, one of my favorite forms) keep drifting around behind my eyes. I love it, not just for the irresistible rhythm, but for the dreamy, synesthesia-like atmosphere created by linking all those incongruous sensations. Here’s “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
\nI feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
\nI learn by going where I have to go.<\/p>\n

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
\nI hear my being dance from ear to ear.
\nI wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click here<\/strong><\/a> to read the rest. And then head on over to Mommy’s Favorite Children’s Books<\/strong><\/a>, where Karen is handling this week’s Poetry Friday roundup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the thing about insomnia: it doesn’t just make you tired. It shades everything with a hint of the surreal. After enough nights of lying there watching the hours blink by on the alarm clock, the boundaries between awake and asleep get blurry. I’ll glance at the time on the computer screen at work and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}