The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!
― Rumi
I revisit this poem from time to time—one I first heard during a great yoga session—because it speaks to me on a spiritual level.
I’ve had a tough spring; a time known for renewal has instead been peppered with death and destruction. And I suppose that is also a type of renewal, but it’s still a blow to my core.
My desire to write has been quelled. In essence, I’ve gone back to sleep. I’ve lingered in the place where part of me died along with the people I’ve lost this spring. I’m making permanence out of the temporary. The stories are suffering as a result. The guilt I feel is palpable—a better way to honor the dead would be to prosper, make art, and touch lives, as they did. But instead, I’ve gone back to sleep.
In my defense, however, I keep waiting for the sunrise, and it just. Won’t. Come.
All I can do is force myself to put words on paper, and hope that in the midst of the grief or apathy or numbness, something useful emerges.
xoxo,
Raquel Ivelisse