Remain Here, Keep Awake

             Mark 14:34 

Until recently I always
slept through the night.
Now, bodily needs or
things buried deep in
the psyche awaken me in
morning’s small hours.
From the first, I emerge
and return to sleep.
From the second, I surface
from depths of dreams,
meetings with the dead,
or the long forgotten
or separated living.

The aging body harbors
the mind’s anxieties, its
worrying consciousness.
Is it healthy or helpful,
does it matter at all
that one old woman
wakes in the night
to hold the world’s hurts
in her battered heart?
Does it cancel the callousness,
of friends who slept
as the Bearer of all sorrow
prayed for the cup to pass?