A favorite poem, by Lawrence Tirnauer* for anyone who (sometimes or all the time) is challenged to get a full night’s sleep – accompanied by an amazing quote by Ram Dass. Whether we are meeting in our mind’s eye in the middle of the night, or in real life, we need each other on this journey “home.” We come from Oneness and we return.
The Sleepless Ones*
What if all the people
who could not sleep
at two or three or four
in the morning
left their houses
and went to the parks
what if hundreds, thousands,
millions
went in solitude
like a stream
and each told their story
what if there were
old women
fearful if they slept
they would die
and young women
unable to conceive
and husbands, wives
having affairs
and children
fearful of failing
and fathers, mothers
worried about paying bills
and men, women
having business troubles
and both unlucky in love
and those that were in physical
pain
and those who were guilty
what if they all left their homes
like a stream
and the moon
illuminated their way and
they came, each one
to tell their stories
would these be the more troubled
of humanity
or would these be
the more passionate of this world
or those who need to create to live
or would these be
the lonely
ones
and I ask you
if they all came to parks
at night
and told their stories
would the sun on rising
be more radiant and
again I ask you
would they embrace?
~ Lawrence Tirnauer
* Some amazing history of this poem that I just learned: Lawrence’s beautiful poem was written in a poetry workshop led by John Fox at the Omega Institute nineteen years ago. John is the director of the Institute of Poetic Wisdom. As John was so moved by this poem, it became the frontispiece to his book, Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem Making which can be found here: http://amzn.to/1CgmEJI
Please check out John’s wonderful website: http://www.poeticmedicine.com/ John was very gracious to share this precious history with me as unfortunately, Lawrence Tirnauer died of brain cancer about ten years ago. The world we live in is a wonder – connections made around the world. I am grateful once again to the Internet and meeting amazing people in this medium. PS – I first heard this poem at an all-day mindfulness retreat with Jack Kornfield 🙂 The world goes round and round – and yes, we all are just “walking each other home.”
The poem is beautiful and touching. I’m not accustomed to reading poems right now, so at first when I glanced at the spacing I thought there was something wrong. But then when I took a minute to read the poem I realized how significant that spacing is to the way I experienced the words. I was able to take the meaning in, one phrase at a time. It slowed me down.