[ Featuring Steve Law ]
In those quiet hours
For two weeks after he died
I'd fall asleep exhausted
Only to wake just past midnight
Desperate, I'd claw at sleep
Frantic to catch it and clutch it
But always it slipped my grasp
And I'd lie awake till morning
My friend suggested
I reframe those sleepless hours
As a sacred time, an intimate
Personal quiet time. Not a problem
Not something to be treated
Not something to be feared
That night, as I emerged from sleep
Dreams dripping from me like water
I did not resist the waking
Instead, eyes closed, heart open
Still lying in bed, I said
I love you, Finn. I miss you, sweetheart
And woke on the shore of morning
Ever since, it happens just like this
When I slip from sleep
I tell my son I love him
And slide unknowingly
Back into the tide of dreams
How many hundreds of times
When he was young, did I go to him
When he cried out in the night
I'd press my palms against his chest
Until his breath was a skiff for dreams
Years later, though I can't feel his hands
Though I don't hear the lullaby of his breath
Somehow he arrives to comfort me
And though I don't hear him say
The words I'd always say to him
I feel them float above me like a blanket
Warm in the cool night air
