Falling Asleep

One of the feelings I most enjoyed,

coming to me now as memory,

was falling asleep with the sounds of friends

or family— gabbling away nearby.

They might have been making my dinner,

for example; that would have been very nice

for me. They might have been studying,

amassing knowledge; that would have helped

me too, group-wise. They might have been doing

any number of things, or staying awake

to no purpose, being there as I dozed off.

A person is part of a bigger system,

a collective, a family, a like-minded bunch,

an organism larger than the individual;

and feeling that losing consciousness lifts.

Now, as I fall asleep in silence,

it pleases me to think how I was.