**sleepwalking! Poem by RAJ NANDY

**SLEEPWALKING!
(I)
The lonely moon sleepwalks across the sky
all night,
As weekly she changes her shape and form, -
Forever looking desolate and forlorn!
Our sleepwalker walks the night in sleep,
As if floating in a dream-like trance;
When all the world is fast asleep, -
He performs his nightly sleeping dance!
Does the waxing moon affect the walker’s
mind, -
When it brings in the flood of waves at full
tide?
Yet no matter how hard the sleepwalker tries, -
His body gets unhinged from his conscious
mind!
Does the walker have eyes made of clay, -
When he walks at night presuming it’s day?
But the Psychiatrists does have a few things to
say!
Somnambulism occurs during deep sleep stage,
When body’s ‘circadian rhythm’* gets disturbed,
And the mind is effected by strain and stress;
When the walker steps out of his conscious
state!
Performing actions during his nocturnal trip, -
And returns to bed to fall fast asleep!
And in the morning when he fully awakes, -
He is unable to recall things done or said!

(I I)
I recall Act V of ‘ Macbeth’ by Shakespeare, -
When Lady Macbeth’s mind burdened by guilt,
She walks with a candle in her hand, all in deep
sleep!
Shakespeare calls it ‘a great perturbation in nature’,
When the Lady with her ‘eyes open and senses shut’;
Tries to wash from her hands those imagined stains, -
Of the murdered King Duncan’s blood!
‘Can all the perfumes of Arabia, ever sweeten
her little hand? ’ – is a question she asks herself, -
As the audience sits spell-bound, feeling sorry for
her mental state!


(III)
Yet there are some who throughout their lives,
Sleepwalk even during the day!
Refusing to face reality or hear sane advice, -
I really don’t know what to say!
They claim God as their own, killing others in
their deluded folly!
While in HIS eyes they become infidels all, -
Since God is no man’s monopoly!
- Raj Nandy
14 Apr09
New Delhi
(*The sleepwalker is said to have different 24 hours
Circadian body rhythm! Somnambulism occurs
prior to the REM stage of sleep, as mentioned in my
poem –‘Our Cycles of Sleep’ – a prelude to this one!
Though Macbeth murdered Duncan to become king,
his wife was the main instigator & conspirator!)