Sleep
by Barry Wallenstein
The headlines read:
"As the world sleeps
round the globe, a giant toad leaps
and stamps." Who alive believes the papers?
Besides, half the various populations
are up and about and not even frightened.
Still, a vast blanket
of sleepers is
at the moment slumbering in a little hamlet
at a country crossroads - 45 people
deeply asleep while a stream flows by
and babbles around its curves. Birds twitter.
The sleepers are garlanded by water;
and the fish are shimmering.
Into this picture
comes the eraser:
sleep, the alarming
factor,
makes no more noise than thought,
as the toad comes down to visit
and with thunderous steps
sets some things wrong that were right.
|