Ode To The Bed

How do I love thee? Let me count the sheep.

• My bed is my lieder, I shall not want for song or horizontally for sleep. Thank you. Really.
• The Lord maketh me lie down in the imaginary pastures of cotton fields at the end of every long day for complete recovery of my heart. Thus, my bed leadeth me beside the stillness of freshly laundered matchy-matchy linens. As fresh as when I changed the bed last. Every two days, no doubt.
• My bed restores not my soul alone, but my head and body, walking me towards the path of peace and quiet, sometimes well-deserved, always well-needed and luxuriating. 
• Even though I sleep through the depth of stream-of-consciousness dreams, I fear not, because I so value that respite as restorative above all.
• Your pillow, blankets and comforter — they comfort me. As I make my bed, so shall I lie in it, to drift off and abandon the day. And you prepare a supportive mattress beneath me in the presence of my bedroom and my cat, who often rests with me, yet not too close.
• I anoint my hands with lotion, sitting soothed undisturbed for eight hours. Just a light layer so that nought runneth over.
• Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all night long for the days of my life and the life of my days. And so I will dwell as well-rested in a bedroom of my own forever.

But when the king’s sleep wanders, waylaid by intrusive thoughts, the bed becomes the prison. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. After turning and tossing, tossing and turning, he makes a break from the bedchamber and into reruns — anything — for a shift.

To sleep, perchance to dream what dreams may come sweetly when I return afresh to my favorite bedroom and bed fit for a king.

With immense gratitude to the muses of Psalm 23, The Book of Esther, and Hamlet. Plus Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Virginia Woolf.