September 19: Barking Son, Bronchitis, Philip Levine, "A Sleepless Night"

I didn't sleep well last night.  In the next bedroom, I could hear my five-year-old son coughing.  He sounded like a seal in San Francisco bay.  It was a terrible sound in the dark.  Eventually, about five in the morning, he came stumbling into bed with my wife and me.  And kept coughing.

I hate it when my kids are sick.  It's that whole parent urge of wanting to fix everything that's wrong for your children, and you can't.  I could tell my son was exhausted, but he couldn't put his head on a pillow for longer than a minute or so before he started barking again.

My wife took him to the pediatrician.  Acute bronchitis.  He has bubblegum-flavored antibiotic now.  By tomorrow, he should be feeling better.

I'm tired.  It has been a long week.  I'm ready for a little down time.

Saint Marty has a poem tonight from Mr. Levine about insomnia, and the first shards of morning.

A Sleepless Night

by:  Philip Levine

April, and the last of the plum blossoms
scatters on the black grass
before dawn. The sycamore, the lime,
the struck pine inhale
the first pale hints of sky.
An iron day,
I think, yet it will come
dazzling, the light
rise from the belly of leaves and pour
burning from the cups
of poppies.
The mockingbird squawks
from his perch, fidgets,
and settles back. The snail, awake
for good, trembles from his shell
and sets sail for China. My hand dances
in the memory of a million vanished stars.

A man has every place to lay his head.

My son last night