Tossing and Turning
by John Updike
The spirit has infinite facets, but the body
confiningly few sides.
There is the left,
the right, the back, the belly, and tempting
in-betweens, northeasts and northwests,
that tip the heart and soon pinch circulation
in one or another arm.
Yet we turn each time
with fresh hope, believing that sleep
will visit us here, descending like an angel
down the angle our flesh’s sextant sets,
tilted toward that unreachable star
hung in the night between our eyebrows, whence
dreams and good luck flow.
Uncross
your ankles. Unclench your philosophy.
This bed was invented by others; know we go
to sleep less to rest than to participate
in the twists of another world.
This churning is our journey.
It ends,
can only end, around a corner
we do not know
we are turning.
Poetry Friday a little early, but I’m going to be out and about for the next week, so I thought I’d get it in.
I’m in the midst of a bouts with insomnia, and I love the phrase, “Uncross your ankles. Unclench your philosophy.” I hope I can manage to remember it even when I can sleep.
Oh my, unclench my philosophy. Whacked me on the head. I think I am one of those to cling to such things as “my philosophy” for dear life.
Are you sure I have to do it? But the white knuckled look is so becoming to my fingers…
Those *are* great phrases, but there’s so much more to love, too, not the least of which is this devotion to theme of “turning,” a theme I love in its many guises.
And how funny is “the tempting in-betweens”?
Oh, dear.
But I do love this line:
“know we go
to sleep less to rest than to participate
in the twists of another world.”
Perhaps you are two-fifths cat or something else night-prowly.