Dear Darkness

1.
 
When I can’t sleep…
 
I get up, make camomile tea, slice an apple, sit in bed, read or
write in my journal about night-waking
 
I seize the chance to witness what I’m thinking or blank it out
with sudoku, for worry-time has no sleep
 
when fear creeps inside my head and death slips in the doorway
– how many die in their sleep?…
 
now I have to rise, feed the cat, move to another room, light a
candle, who else is up at this hour?
 
or I go into the garden wishing I could see more, to touch both
you and your stars
 
what it must be like to see a path through trees where night
memory is my vision
 
it takes twenty minutes for pupils to dilate and even then on a
night with no moon
 
I can’t tune in to your shadows – everything reduced to black and
grey and my ears become alert
 
it’s only 3.00 am but at least I’ve caught the slip-stitch of
time…
 
night sky holding
a bowl of infinity
over our heads
 

Patricia Helen Wooldridge

Published in Acumen, 103, May 2022;
published in collection, Out in the Field, 2023, Cinnamon Press,
ISBN 978-1-7886414-2-5