Sleep

By Cliff Lake

 

Sleep

 

Being too aware of the tramplings of Man,

Where do I take my comfort now?

From the plastics in the water?

In the food?

Will that render me indestructible?

Or just a replication of who I once was?

 

What quietude am I to find

In the caging of other beings

No less deserving of their place,

No less deserving of their freedom

But now contained

In order to save them from us?

 

Where do I take my rest

From the pursuit of violence

Excused through split tongues

Reading what they desire

From warnings against

What they would rather choose?

 

How can I in faith blind myself

To the suffering I cannot mend,

But can speak against

To those that do not hear?

If ignorance is bliss,

Is stupidity the heaven craved?

 

Would that I could sleep

Through these tribulations,

And through inactivity

And guilted silences

Absolve myself of things I have not done,

But could have affected.

 

How do I find repose

Knowing the self-destruction of Man

Continues apace,

In the pursuit of pleasures transient,

With no thought of tomorrows

Or those that will die of today’s poisons.

 

Thus, the nights ring with sorrow

Of mistakes made in full knowledge

Of the consequences ignored

And assuaged with cheap entertainments.

And so, I write.

And so I write:

Would that it is enough…

 

Cliff Lake 12/5/2023

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2023

Location: Dalton, MA, USA

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