The Sleep I Seek

Poet's note: Ndimancho T. Nyowikeh Done: 26th February 2024 Yaoundë "The Sleep I Seek" is a poem written by Ndimancho T. Nyowikeh an emerging Cameroonian Poet and a playwright. The speaker starts his poem in the dying hour of twilight drawing inspiration from a tired worker who tried all day long to catch up with the buzzing activities only to be left in the mercy hands of drowsiness. But, how will such happen? The speaker can't sleep at the job site nor abandon work for it's his lone source. So, the speaker prays and cries for the evening and night to come and appease his mind which is restless in turmoil. In the last stanza, the evening finally comes and the speaker says "So hereby lie" he sleeps in shadows dark and deep just hoping he can find the sleep he seeks. Sleep here means; leisure, nap, remnant, leisure, furlough etc.... Which is the only thing that comes to embrace the hard-working ones. To the speaker, sleep is the bounty of a tired worker. The poems can further be perceived from the prism of a restless mind caught up while thinking about the gust of life and its turmoil. We live in a society where unrest is taking the liege and everyone is either here or there. Sleep has been taken away from our sights. while others can not tell when last they had a good night's sleep. A man trapped in the middle of the sea and the deep blue sea can not seek any but a good night's sleep.