As A Sister

Suzanne awoke abruptly, gripping the sheet with both hands to steady her nerves. What nocturnal apparition had so shaken her sleeping self? The night surged around her, offering no comfort. Oh, how she wished to sink headlong into the rhythms of sleep, and not awake until morning light covered everything with its gentle radiance. Suzanne was trapped in a cul de sac between the lure of night and the weight of day. The clock told her the harsh truth: four hours until the earliest light, four hours before the carillon of birds signaled a fresh turn of time, four hours restlessly mocking lost sleep... Suzanne recited a passage by Denise Levertov, more prayer than poem, and lay back in readiness. Then sleep rose invisibly from its place of being, and quickly descended on Suzanne. All her thoughts and worries, her desires and fears, her appetites and dreams, sleep rolled together and dropped deep, deep, far deeper than the chamber of rest into which it placed her. And Suzanne slept without effort the rest of the night. Sleep slowly withdrew to answer the summons of others in need... * * * * In a large grassy field adjacent to her apartment, Suzanne stood amid the aromas and colors of wild flowers, at a comfortable distance from others. The slanting light of mid-morning made everything shine! Suzanne watched the bustle of people, rushing, racing. She turned to face a wall of foliage, and joined the trees and shrubs, the small animals and the birds in inhaling and exhaling the green air. She was content: in her heart she knew the earth loved her as a sister.