A Sleeper Awakes
by J.J. Brewer
Art: “In Bloom I” by Moriah Hampton
Calypso is singing (with unmasked but closed eyes):
If only my toes could see! Such is my daily lament,
a whimsical complaint of a woman amazed
she gets out of her bed at all—so mystified by occult science!
Did wakeful Mr. Darwin know the way it works? It evolved?
I envy early Eve, even earlier Adam, “sleeping in” on workdays.
But did that pair have “work days”? If not, would Eve get up at all?
To do exactly what? Would Adam say “Go out and weed that garden?”
Yes, if only there were eyes on my toes:
Little lenses below, looking out for me like periscopes,
maybe two or three teeny-tiny-itty-bitty web-cams
slipping secretly out from hiding, ready to scan for
what’s looming in wait out there, before routing the data,
forwarding images and sounds (heat-sensitive files) to CEB:
Chief Executive Brain, where decision-making takes place.
Before eyes on my face open, before blankets on bed get thrown,
such visionary toes below could throw CEB some options to assess:
“We see a warm room cheerful with sunlight,
the sky outside seems brightly blue.
Go ahead! Attempt the escape!
Gratefully rejoice, gracefully re-join!”
Or, alternatively:
“Chilly rooms shadowed by ghosts,
awkward clouds clogging the city.
Remain buried, burrow in blankets,
conserve energy, Calypso. Retreat,
today’s activities are drowsing dreams.”
I was inspired to compose this poem after recently re-reading that part of Homer’s Odyssey where the nymph goddess Calypso is “abandoned” by the epic’s hero after detaining him for seven years on the island Ogygia, from which she is forbidden ever to leave—cursed by the Olympian gods because she supported her Titan father, Atlas, in the losing war against the Olympian rebels. Her name is derived from the Greek for “to cover, to conceal, to hide.” I imagine her in modern times as a woman living alone after a painful divorce, in a house that she rarely leaves. But I am a fan also of Calypso music—Day-O!—from a different island, Trinidad. So when I discovered that the Caribbean root of the music name Calypso is carieto, meaning “joyous song,” I further imagined her singing ambivalently as she considers awakening to face a new day. (Thus, my thoughts regarding her plight point to ironic mixtures of “revel” and “rebel.” )
Two works of fiction by James Joaquin Brewer have appeared in previous editions of Quibble (numbers 5 and 9).