To Sleep

by Lynn Michael Martin

O Sleep, dark baptism to the land of sight,
your floods rise over me; I sink beneath
where nameless tendrils turn a silent wreath
under the clouds of shadow-tinctured night.
Behind my vision lurks a gloaming light,
and while my eyes sink down into their sheath,
my ankles tug serene against your teeth
that draw me down into your home, tonight.
For it is right, and always will be right,
that I return to these shell-covered shores,
to take my refuge from the day’s cold light,
and bathe my pains in your forgotten cures,
and make my home among the troubadours
that sing a vigil for the ceaseless night.

Lynn Martin hopes that his poetry can connect with others who struggle with the tension between a glorious hope and a selfish realism—and who find it hard to be content with the complex and muddy life that usually results.