Things to look back on

Help us get to sleep  

Things to look forward to

Get us going each day  

Looks back and forward

Thus tide us over --

The back and forth

Of night and day  

The back and forth

Of our feelings  

Cycles, waves in and out

Are a tide over us --    

Looking back

At these boosts  

The looking back and

The looking forward  

They look like bookends

Flanking each night's sleep...

Looking forward

These paired bookends

Corral the stories from

Slumber's territories  

Like mute sentinels

Guarding a gateway --                                   

Looked at in

Another way

These bookends can

As easily

Be seen as borders for

The days as for the nights --

The left bookend

Preceding night

Is the righthand bookend

Of the previous day  

While the night's right bookend

Is the next day's left one...  

This seemingly

Endless series  

Stretches like the posts

Of a picket fence  

Or the towers of a

Long sequence of bridges -- 

Each span of suspension

Crosses the sea of sleep  

To touch down for

Another day  

Where we live out events

Til we reach the next bridge --      

Our days are thus islands,

An archipelago  

Reaching from birth to death

Like stones across a stream  

Alternating with straits

Whose tides bring glides through dream...