On Restlessness
I’ve been asking myself the same question.
I know you think you want to know everything;
I would like to understand how we operate.
But I’m afraid we’ve both been losing sleep.
Come morning, we’ll step onto the floor
with no more than a yawn, stretch, or a blink.
I won’t have the time it takes to blink
before today has again stifled any question
that might hinder my progress across the floor.
And now you think that I know everything,
for the nights I spent your waking hours asleep.
This is simply the only way I can operate.
Suppose revolutions weren’t how days operate.
Suppose we relied on how often we blink
to decide the time between waking and sleep.
I don’t think we would have any question
about the sun, zoology, God, and everything.
We’ll spend hours charting stars, backs to the floor.
When you can make angels touch the floor,
there will be nothing left to manually operate.
The universe will be in control of everything,
assuring us of this when we watch the stars blink.
What makes us anxious will be out of the question;
what has kept us up will sing us back to sleep.
Until we find answers, let’s at least try to sleep.
Pull your blankets back to your bed from the floor.
If it helps, find some paper: write your question.
Mine merely asks How do you and I operate?
I wrote it when my hands were numb, I couldn’t blink,
and I was nervous for the state of everything.
There was never a time that I knew everything.
There wasn’t a night I wanted you to lose sleep.
There are some words you can say with a blink.
There are nights I wake up curled on the floor.
There are appliances that refuse to operate.
There are solutions that don’t have a question.
Today you woke with everything tossed across the floor,
from elbows thrown in your sleep—the ways you operate
that make you blink, like you answered your own question.
— David K. Wheeler
“On Restlessness” is from Contingency Plans,
, 2010. Photo by Paula Campos, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.
just. the whole poem.
so hard to choose simple sections!
here's a favorite, from many:
"There was never a time that I knew everything.
There wasn’t a night I wanted you to lose sleep. "