I am robbed of my sleeping by the thought of my girls weeping The one who would have me run away to distant lands for adventure and play The one who would make me a home have me grow roots, forbid me to roam The one whose home is the castle highland The one who escaped the beautiful island I am robbed of my night's rest by dreams troubled and distressed Of the one who closed the book on me and the one who flipped through the pages of the chronicles of her own history seeking a passage lost through the ages to lands forgotten, country of mystery of lights and ice, and elves and sages Of the one whose chapter sees my birth and the one who sketched to tell her love of nature, and things of the Earth and writes me still to say she's well Of the one whose story remains unwritten and the one who's frightened, of becoming a footnote The one for whom I fell in an instant, smitten and the one who remains forever remote The one whose legend years have ignored whose kin and spirit I sought in the fjord The one that lives by green tea whom I call sweet pea But in my dreams, 'tis me who robs I am the thief, who stole one's heart and another's dignity (tearing her apart) 'Tis I who stole, one's trust and another's hope another's faith, by contemplation of the rope It is I who absconds with my sleep whose mind has defrauded me clad in wolfskins the inner sheep and taken my heart and humanity Thus I lay awake by right in the wee hours of the night to pay for my transgressions to God make my confessions ~ ~ ~ She sleeps at my side as peaceful as the kitten whose eyes have not yet opened and cannot tell dreams from Buddha-hood She sleeps on my breast a soul unstained by sin surrendered to exhaustion in the play of my fingers yearnings of her flesh Purity on one pillow perdition on the other One sleeps, the other dreams of the one One earns whilst the other spends forming an unbalanced equation the exact accounting of which demands the grace of God [Xineru 2, 2011]