CREATIVE SATURDAY Poetry by Daniel Rider of Doctor WHO 2 "Awake" I am walking, directionless, in the middle of the night, along the streets of Munich. Halfway through the trip, this night half over, I am lost now in somebody else’s insomnia, looking for stars to make her wishes on. This is me, shivering at 1 a.m., a traveler with a black leather jacket and no cash in my pockets. I have no passport, nothing but myself, all of that behind me, in the hotel, with her, the sleepless one. Far away from her early morning ballet, I wander along the Marienplatz like a ghost, a stranger to this still-awake city, dead to its movement. A flute shrills from a panhandler in a doorway. A woman calls to her friend in German. The water beats continuously into the town fountain. All of this I hear, without joy, not a part of it, because she is still awake somewhere and I can do nothing to help. “Can you sleep?” she asked. Wide-awake, she asked if I were wide awake. I answered with a question, evasive, “Are you?” At that point, I could have gone to sleep, could have rolled over and disappeared into dream— But instead I found myself listening to her in the dark, the broken, undreaming rhythm of her breath, her arms crossing, uncrossing, her head sliding from side to side. So much wanting to sleep, I thought, and softer, not wanting to acknowledge the thought, Is she thinking of me, what I said? Sleep, I thought, I willed, and my heart began pounding; I could hear nothing but her in the night, think nothing but: She never wanted anything more than friendship. There was nothing for it but to collect my clothes and leave. “Where are you going?” she asked. “To walk,” I said, and so here I am. This itself could be a dream, this journey across cobblestones, through city lights, through long friendships changed instantly in a show of longing. I wish it were. I wish that she could sleep. I tell this to the night: Let her sleep, I tell the only light in the sky, not knowing whether it’s planet, star, or satellite, just Let her sleep. But somehow I know she will be awake when I return, that my traverse is nothing but a communion. Two friends at a late hour, too late for words or touch or hugs, too late for any of it. United in sleeplessness, more distant by each step.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 17:30:01 +0000
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