“Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod” by Traci Brimhall
A selection from Brimhall’s hypnotic collection of poems, and an original piece of writing (written after an episode of sleep paralysis)
“Dear Thanatos, Goddamn the sweet ease of night.”
Traci Brimhall explores the haunting depths of loss and love in her book “Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod.” Her poems walk us through a series of unsettling, yet beautifully crafted landscapes: a lonely arctic artists’ retreat, lullabies for an unborn child, the site of a friend’s violent murder, and the Land of Nod, the place Cain was exiled after he murdered his brother Abel — also considered in more secular terms “the place of dreams.” She writes a series of letters interspersed throughout the collection addressed, respectively, to Thanatos, God of Death, and Eros, God of Love. One poem to Thanatos has particularly stuck with me. Here is the link. Please read it, and if you have time, read the whole collection. It is sad, and difficult, but an inspiring work of art.
“Dear Thanatos, Goddamn the sweet ease of night” welcomes the escape of sleep and brilliantly opens the door to the subconscious with the image of a speared whale sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor. One of my favorite lines: “but it sang the moral mysteries, moaned//its oral histories to the submarines as it fell.”
I just woke up from a particularly weird episode of sleep paralysis after taking a “night nap” (always a bad idea but sometimes inevitable). I normally write down my dreams, but decided to write a sort of lyrical piece instead. My piece, quite the opposite of Brimhall’s welcome to sleep, fights against its sometimes suffocating grip. I was inspired by “Dear Thanatos,” however, because the dream I had was an ocean setting. The most obvious “nod” to Brimhall’s piece is the whale and his relationship to the ocean floor. My piece is very literally titled:
“Sometimes when I sleep, I feel my eyes not opening”
Torn from life to a midnight nap, to sleep a sleep where I dream of not waking. On a bed floating in the middle of the ocean, I am surrounded. Everyone (I do not know I know) watches eyes that will not open.
Eyes that will not open, always for all to see.
What traps me when the water is free? Bending my crown to my lower back, I’m God’s circle, a whirlpool. Anything can fall through me but my cries get sucked in, too.
Is there freedom in forced rapture? No, I think. Maybe that’s why the whale’s song swallows constellations. He cries: “Weeeee! What parts of earth haven’t seen the sky?” I remember something: a feeling dips into the deep, and soft currents of sadness quell the thrashing. I remember dancing to the tune of differences, a cure to hearts that I thought were all the same. I’ve drowned in mystic truths, thinking my breath built the waves and I smiled as they crashed against our shins, sinking. Singing, You’re my best friend forever, I saw it in your eyes and now I know how faith can sting. I thrash and the edges laugh beyond my vision. Eyes that will not open, always for all to see.
Still. The doldrums enclose my restless sleep, and I hope I am entertaining. I wonder if the sun and mist and heatstroke paint on their faces the dreams I wished to un-dream. I’m selfish so I roll off my floating bed grabbing whatever I can feel and set sail for far away, dreaming the dark will look different there. My sheets sink and the pillows dissolve and the water churns only inside me. I forgot the shape I am in and how the middle of the ocean does not breathe. I try, but I do not blink. I can’t see you, but allow me to search for the treasure in your absence and decompose my memory to balance my spirit as it sings the whale’s song. I can’t right the ship but I wouldn’t know if it was wrong. Would you tell me? My eyes that will not open, always for all to see.
In my dream, father, you came to wake me up and I almost could not stop the waking. Beating, breathless, watery underworld. I peeled my head from my back and back and forth and back and forth I butterflied to the surface. The edges un-blur and I check the heart: it stares like a newborn, terrified. The moon rises with a crash and the wind swallows my cries. I breathe, and the water shakes.
