SINGING AND DANCING

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Here’s our chalkboard poem for today …

            I awoke several times last night and listened for a few minutes to the faint musical humming of the traffic on the distant interstate, and it has me thinking, this afternoon, about some of the other things that happen while I’m sleeping. For the few hours that I’m asleep, the universe, as always, is a stirring place. Besides the music of countless insects, there must be limitless kinds of activities among nighttime animals as they live their important lives – the whirring and rushing and soaring that’s essential for the creatures that carry on with their lives while I’m lying among soft sheets. Then there’s the nighttime work of people who prepare essential things for the rest of us while we sleep – the third-shift factory workers who make the beds that we sleep on, the grocery employees who get food up on the shelves so we can select what we need in the morning, the employees of power companies who keep our nightlights lit. While I’m sleeping, airplanes are streaking across countries and seas on essential missions, hospitals are helping people prepare for better lives, and police officers in cities and towns are taking their peacekeeping work seriously. While I’m fortunate to be finding a few hours of rest beside my wife, rivers are melodiously flowing and stars are doing their silent songs, as always, above us. 

So many songs while I’m lost in sleep!