Last night, once again, long bouts of insomnia. One of those nights where you’re awake so much, you cannot recall sleep time from awake time. The shortest poem in my first book (The Indifferent World), a mere three lines, hits on this experience.
Three lines, you say? Is it haiku? Maybe. It certainly is not the 5-7-5 syllabic formula favored in schools, but these days anything three lines can be called “haiku-ish,” just as anything 14 lines gets labeled “sonnet-ish.”
Being more of a purist, I prefer calling the poem “un-haiku-ish.” Still, it catches the flavor of sleeplessness all right, and serves as a salve this morning as I prepare to begin another “day in the life,” as the Beatles called their tribute to the quotidian first written and sung in 1967.
Here you go:
3:30
by Ken Craft
In the dark,
from over the water, a rooster
celebrates my insomnia.
By which I mean, 3:30 is something that should be slept through, not experienced. It is, in short, best left to roosters like Chanticleer (who brings no cheer).
Bottom line? Thank God for afternoon naps.
