as i am in bed waiting for sleep   patiently

knowing it will not come soon

i say my prayer/mantra   though it has become 

little more than superstition   thoughts drift

i compose lines   which   like dreams   

will be indistinct come morning   once upon a time 

i would have gotten up   written them down   now

i know it makes no difference   

there are always more lines   none so precious as i used to think

this poem is about the process of losing lines   not the lines themselves   

this i know   precious or not   

the lost lines were far richer for their proximity

to sleep and dream—ethereal   sublime   of the cosmos     

than this form-fitted mediocrity    

~

i fall asleep haunted by our eternal separation 

this line i remember