Don'T Go Back To Sleep
I asked myself why?
Why 3 in the morning?
At 2.59 A.M. I was inside a dream,
now I am inside a life.
I will have to go to the bathroom,
I return to my tussled bed.
Words fall into my mind:
“Don’t go back to sleep.”
I tell myself these are remembered words
Jalal ad-Din Rumi wrote them – when?
Why, he wrote them at 3 in the morning!
Now it’s 3.15
I ask myself ‘Where did the time go,
where did I go?’
16 minutes ago I was a dream,
dreaming a dream,
Now I am a time-traveler
and a long dead mystic
reads my mind by the light
of his heart.
Don’t go back to sleep.
Stay in the silence,
listen.
There is a reason you wake up
at a certain time in the early morning,
it could be 2, 3 or 4 o’clock
it is not just a full bladder, no
this is the time that has been set aside for you,
a time when time dances away from the clock,
a space for you to listen within.
A time to ask of yourself. Stay awhile,
don’t go back to sleep.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2021
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