by Ryan Keating

Sleep is trust 
my soul is taught
by my body, God, the sun

not exactly by coercion 
but powerful persuasion 
that the nothingness of night
need not keep my eyes awake.

The arrows will not find me.
I will not die,
or get caught running slowly
from an enemy I cannot see.
I am seen and found in darkness,

and another conscious mind,
not mine, makes stand the sky 
and brings the far horizon close
with hope and mercy I could not have
known if I had not been made 
to lie down.

Ryan Keating is a writer, pastor, and winemaker on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. His work can be found in publications such as Saint Katherine Review, Ekstasis Magazine, Amethyst Review, Macrina Magazine, Fathom, Vocivia, Roi Fainéant, and Miras Dergi, where he is a regular contributor in English and Turkish.

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