Insomnia I

Some nights it's bound to be your best way out,

When nightmare is the short end of the stick,

When sleep is a part of town where it's not

To walk at night, when waking is the only

You have of distancing your wretched dead,

A growing crowd, and escaping out of

Time into yours for another little while;

Then pass ghostly, a planet in the

Never observed, among the sleeping

Where children dream themselves, and thence go

Into the empty domain where daylight reigned;

Reward yourself with drink and a book to read,

A mystery, for its elusive

Of reassurance against the hour of death.

Order your heart about:

Stop doing that!

And get the world to be secular again.

Then, when you know who done it, turn out the light,

And quietly in darkness, in moonlight, or

Reflective, listen to the whistling

In its backspin trajectory around the

That makes the planets sometimes

And brings the cold forgiveness of the

Whose light extinguishes all stars but one.

Howard Nemerov was born on February 29th, 1920 in New York.

He died of cancer at his home in University City,

Missouri on July 5th 1991.