Ferris Wheel of Sleep

Night comes after days
exalted, joyous,
or routine and dull
filled to the brim with
reflexive work
and the absence of thoughts
that ask questions
uncomfortable
and difficult to answer.

Though insomniac,
night has its perks
silence, solitude,
and the luxury of being with oneself
in those few evanescent moments
before the eyes surrender
to the warmth and comfort
of one’s only nonjudgmental friend:
the bed,
offering ample time and space
to reflect.

Random thoughts open like gently revolving
fuzzy whorls,
each fading as another appears
recollection of the day,
the week, the year,
on repeat.
Fantasies, a few,
leading to dreams, lucid and clear.

Sleep is like a ferris wheel:
one goes down into a dream,
rising again to blank wakefulness
where bizarre thoughts
tend to wander in.
That’s where one finds
one’s true self,
hidden beneath layers
of material irrelevance.
Layers upon layers of the mundane
peel away, one by one,
revealing the true,
naked self.

The ferris wheel finally stops
on a pyre in the end,
or a coffin,
or on plain mud
at the bottom of a narrow hole.
It may be uncomfortable,
though more forgiving and more generous
remembering the good
one may have never, ever done.

© Shashikant Dudhgaonkar