Last night, I woke up at 2am with my mind worrying over a host of things, including how to do better land acknowledgements which apparently 2am Me feels very strongly about, and I didn’t manage to get back to sleep until at least 5. Today, I have spent the day feeling as if someone popped my eyeballs out of my head, scuffed them up in sandpaper, and then reinserted. It was delightful timing, then, for Nancy Lee to email her poems for the Secret Society of Poetry Appreciators.

Nancy shared:

I have struggled with insomnia for years.  It is a curse that those who sleep well cannot understand.  I know I am not alone in this struggle; I get quiet comfort knowing that at any given moment in the night, there is an army of us, hyperaware of our surroundings. 

Nancy Lee

Nancy joked that, in her customary style of not following directions, she recorded 4 (!) poems on this subject, “as if one is awake one may as well do research!” She left it to me to select one. But honestly, I’m too tired to decide. So abundance of riches, my friends. I will share two just to let you night-time wanderers now that we’ve got you.

Nancy shared that “for authenticity, these were read quietly in early morning, pre-coffee for full gravel-voiced effect, from the spare bedroom.”

And she did try to write her own poem… but didn’t get farther than the first line, which I think pretty much says all that needs to be said.

Sleep, you vindicative bitch!  

Nancy Lee