Day 493: Waking at 3am

What is it about 3am?  Lots of poems written about night that mention it, songs too. I always seem to wake exactly around it. 

But as all insomniacs will know, being awake at night with an awake mind means a whole lot of gargantuan worries. Everything seems worse then, as this poem details. But look how that changes as sleep comes - so too does reassurance and comfort: 'A great snug wall goes around everything... It is a good world to be lost in...It is all right.'  Maybe we humans are wired this way, to self-comfort and find assurance in times of crisis.

Waking at 3AM - William Stafford

Even in the cave of the night when you
wake and are free and lonely,
neglected by others, discarded, loved only
by what doesn't matter - even in that
big room no one can see,
you push with your eyes till forever
comes in its twisted figure eight
and lies down in your head.

You think water in the river;
you think slower than the tide in
the grain of the wood; you become
a secret storehouse that saves the country,
so open and foolish and empty.

You look over all that the darkness
ripples across. More than has ever
been found comforts you. You open your
eyes in a vault that unlocks as fast
and as far as your thought can run.
A great snug wall goes around everything,
has always been there, will always
remain. It is a good world to be
lost in. It comforts you. It is
all right. And you sleep.