Written ca. 1967; published on 15 April 2021
Image: “Sleeping Girl,” attributed to Sigismondo Coccapani (1583-1643); attributed to Domenico Fetti (1589-), 1620-1622, in Wikimedia Commons … https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domenico_Fetti_-_Sleeping_Girl_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg … public domain
Image: “Sleeping Girl,” attributed to Sigismondo Coccapani (1583-1643); attributed to Domenico Fetti (1589-), 1620-1622, in Wikimedia Commons … https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domenico_Fetti_-_Sleeping_Girl_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg … public domain
Dear Ones,
As I recall, I wrote this poem when I was in college. I recall one ‘No-Doz’ night prepping for a final exam. Could be that prompted me to write about sleep, which seemed forgettable until I neglected it.
“Sleep”
A Poem by Alice B. Clagett
ca. 1967
Sleep is something that’s not there.
Try to trap it anywhere.
Try to catch it by surprise —
It’s not found in waking eyes.
Not here,
Or there
Or anywhere.
Yet sleep to us is everything
The what-from we get pep and zing
For ringing
and singing
with giving
and living . . . and yet
Sleep is something that’s not there.
Try to find it anywhere
Try to catch it unaware
You can’t trace it to its lair
Not here
or there —
Not anywhere.
Image: “Sleeping Girl,” attributed to Sigismondo Coccapani (1583-1643); attributed to Domenico Fetti (1589-), 1620-1622, in Wikimedia Commons … https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domenico_Fetti_-_Sleeping_Girl_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg … public domain
Image: “Sleeping Girl,” attributed to Sigismondo Coccapani (1583-1643); attributed to Domenico Fetti (1589-), 1620-1622, in Wikimedia Commons … https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domenico_Fetti_-_Sleeping_Girl_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg … public domain
–from Link: “Sleep,” a poem by Alice B. Clagett, written ca. 1967; published on 15 April 2021 … https://wp.me/p2Rkym-mmh ..
……….
Alice B. Clagett
Except where otherwise noted, “The Chalice and the Crucible” by Alice B. Clagett … https://chaliceandcrucible.com/ … is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) … https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ..