Poetry Blog #11

For the Sleepwalkers
By: Edward Hirsch

This poem is about what happens at night for a sleepwalker. It talks about the journeys they have and the willingness to leave their beds during the night. This poem is about how sleepwalkers put all their trust in themselves at night when they are still sleeping. They do things that they would not normally do during their waking hours. They make decisions that they are too afraid to make during the day with the watching eyes of others around. During the night, they let their heart do what they please leading them down the path that the truly want to go. 

At the end of the poem the author says, "We have to drink the stupefying cup of darkness and wake up to ourselves, nourished and surprised." These couple lines show that when the sleepwalkers wake up in the morning they have to wake up to their true self who is afraid to do what their hearts desire during their waking hours. They have to go back to normal and are surprised to hear what they have done during the long night. 

This poem is a good realizer that when our hearts desire something we should not be ashamed to follow our hearts during our waking hours and not be ashamed to follow our desires despite of what others think.