11/27/2004|||110157264275300056||||||

THE DEEP FOREST

Andrew Sullivan's recent posts on his sleep disorder set me thinking about how obsessed with sleep - or the lack of it - I became when our first son was born fourteen years ago. Every new parent I met seemed equally fixated on the subject; we talked about it relentlessly, like tramps scouring the ground for cigarette butts. As I'm a very light sleeper, the arrival of two more boys played havoc with my rest patterns.
Yet it's one of those themes you very rarely see mentioned in the culture at large - much like nappies, I suppose. One exception that I came across a few years ago is "Lights Out", a poem by the English author, Edward Thomas. I believe he wrote it while serving in the trenches in World War One. (He was killed in 1917. There's more information here.)
I often think about his words when I see photos of troops in Iraq trying to grab a little rest:


I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.

Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.

Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.

There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter, and leave, alone,
I know not how.

The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.

|||Clive|||http://clivedavis.blogspot.com/2004/11/deep-forest-andrew-sullivans-recent.html|||11/27/2004 04:01:00 pm|||||||||

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