Watching Sleep

Watching Sleep

August 5, 2002

Last night I counted your breaths while you slept.

Towards morning, I lost count, but

you awoke a few minutes later,

so I rounded the number off

and privately recorded your many thousands of sleeping

breaths, in the journal of love I am making for you.

This entry:  the night I counted your breaths while you slept.

I wanted to do this.

I wanted to have a secret way of loving you,

so that all the known ways I love you

can have a private underside,

a place where love is always new and mysterious.

I know that you count my breaths while I am awake.

Somewhere, inside the often-painful activity of your mind,

you find a peaceful grotto, and there

you count my breaths, without even knowing you are doing it.

Your love is so constant, it is a place I can go where fear does not exist,

has never existed.

I must practice harder than you, to love.

I must keep awake and make vigil, sometimes,

so that,  while you dream,

I am doing something important,

being the clock of your breath,

helping you sleep.

I can do nothing more loving for you

than to help you sleep.

You always wanted someone to watch over you.

You felt abandoned and alone.

With this secret, I heal you.

I count the long slow breaths, I catch at the sudden twitches,

I invent words to accompany your dream-mumbled incoherences.

I might show you this poem, if it will make you happy.

I wanted it to be a secret.  But tomorrow night, or the next,

I will do it again, or I will do something else,

find another way to love you,

something only I could think of doing,

and only you could understand

why I have done it.