before morning

Photo by Hendrik Morkel on Unsplash

this poem came through around 4am today, after a half hour’s effort at trying to go back to sleep. as i lay there, two books came to mind. Wintering, by Katherine May, in which i learned about the long-forgotten practice of nighttime waking called “biphasic sleep.” it was common practice among pre-industrial peoples to wake in the middle of the night to read, write, contemplate, converse and even visit neighbors for tea. as someone who struggled for many years with working very hard to go back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night (then surrendering to wakefulness to enjoy some of my best moments of navigating the silence), the knowledge of this practice has been a sweet permission to get up and write in the dark.
the other book, David Whyte’s Crossing The Unknown Sea, i’ve been marking up and dog-earing like mad, after having it on my shelf for at least twenty years. as i’ve been struggling lately with not writing as much as i long to, i’ve found much wisdom about what he calls the marriages with work and time. and, in dissecting a recent experience of fatigue, i was deeply struck by Brother David Stendl-Rast’s reply to his question about exhaustion, “The antidote to exhaustion may not be rest. It may be wholeheartedness.”

i offer these words, received as wholeheartedly as possible in the middle of last night, from my soul to yours.

before morning

there is a certain 
kind of work, which can be done 
only in the soft 

and silent hours 
before morning has made its 
greetings. and though, at 

first, it comes amidst 
complaint and hesitation 
to arise from the 

tossing and turning 
of trying to return to 
that deep, restful place 

from which it beckoned 
a begrudging welcome, it 
brings with it a gift 

so rare and precious, 
as to deserve the receipt 
of full and humble 

attention to what 
it has to offer in that 
spacious, liminal 

time. tended by those 
who came before and know the 
significance of 

opening that gift, 
of saying yes to waking 
when everyone else 

remains  in sleep, it 
blooms, like an evening primrose, 
only for you to 

witness and record 
with paper and pen while the 
darkness holds you close.