Her nap went on forever—
Is forever tedious or sublime?
The sublimity of forever
Will be tedious—a sublimely dull time.
I don’t think she was bored,
When all afternoon, she slept.
She had been bored, I know,
Had she made the beds and swept—
Seven beds in every chamber,
Six beds in the dark and lofty hall,
The heart of a cavernous mansion,
With Bluebeard on the wall.
Sleeping is unlearned—
We do it lovingly, and then
We stand among the learned, again.
In dreams, the highest logic is made,
The same logic we discern
In Nietzsche’s Eternal Return,
To find each lonely bed, unmade,
With beauty wandering up and down
Dim halls, singing, in a radiant dressing gown.
In sleep, we dreamily hunt the deer,
The deer hides in fields of wheat,
Sleep making everything near,
The day, the deer, on silent feet,
The low shadows, just as fleet.
The door is more logical now.
The mist in winter—but how?
By dreams, dreams are accordingly fed,
By a secret love, or a secret dread,
Of hunting. She will find
A woman changed to a deer in her mind.
In the shortest nap,
She can see inside seeing,
The one deer, and then all of them, fleeing.
She can pin down anxiety, symbol, map,
And arrive at the essence of her being,
And in a moment, asleep, feel
Things more memorable and real
Than the dream recording the life:
Kindness. Sleep. Hunting’s feverish strife.
Who can make themselves coldly themselves, in a cold and seamless life?
She sleeps by the sleepy lake in the sleepy shade.
Was it merely a nap, or death?
Asleep, immortal,
I watch her through the crimson portal.
In the brain, there was life.
For a time, there was life.
Sublime, sublime, even all the time,
In her dream, and in that life.