Image: “Sleeping Girl,” attributed to Sigismondo Coccapani (1583-1643); attributed to Domenico Fetti (1589-), 1620-1622, in Wikimedia Commons … https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domenico_Fetti_-_Sleeping_Girl_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg … public domain

Image: “Sleeping Girl,” attributed to Sigismondo Coccapani (1583-1643); attributed to Domenico Fetti (1589-), 1620-1622, in Wikimedia Commons … https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domenico_Fetti_-_Sleeping_Girl_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg … public domain

Dear Ones,

As I recall, I wrote this poem when I was in college. I recall one ‘No-Doz’ night prepping for a final exam. Could be that prompted me to write about sleep, which seemed forgettable until I neglected it.

“Sleep”
A Poem by Alice B. Clagett
ca. 1967

Sleep is something that’s not there.
Try to trap it anywhere.
Try to catch it by surprise —
It’s not found in waking eyes.
Not here,
Or there
Or anywhere.

Yet sleep to us is everything
The what-from we get pep and zing
For ringing
and singing
with giving
and living . . . and yet

Sleep is something that’s not there.
Try to find it anywhere
Try to catch it unaware
You can’t trace it to its lair
Not here
or there —
Not anywhere.

Image: “Sleep,” handwritten by Alice B. Clagett, ca. 1967, CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: “Sleep,” handwritten by Alice B. Clagett, ca. 1967, CC BY-SA 4.0 International, from “Awakening with Planet Earth,” https://awakeningwithplanetearth.com ..

. . . . .

In love, light and joy,
Alice B. Clagett
I Am of the Stars

Written ca. 1967; I used 1 January 1967 as the date of writing; published on 15 April 2021

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Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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poems by Alice, poetry,