help in the night

getting ready for the next round

I think that my psyche needs regular maintenance.

While I’m awake, I send scouting expeditions

back along the paths that I feel 

might have led to a feeling,  to a mood,

all very left-brain and rational,

also often revelatory of which part of my clockwork

works to make me tick this way or that.

In sleep, I can also work hard, maybe harder,

and to change the metaphor,

to knit those “raveled sleeves of care,”

last night, in a kind of dreaming, 

I worked for hours on some issues

I never quite consciously grasped,

yet in the morning I felt better for the work,

physically and psychically, I imagine teams of helpers

swarming around me in between rounds,

working to ready me to face the next bout.

by Henry H. Walker

June 21, ‘16