By now, I’d expect to be buried
in sleepless nights.
For me the slightest thing
keeps me from sleep—food,
a shift in temperature,
of course, worry and anxiety.

I rise to a grey window
to see what’s really always there,
the vigilance of nature
stirring through the trees.

Then I think
sleep is the anomaly,
what we do dawn to dusk,
live a waking dream,
while only death,
like nature,
is wakeful and alive.