It's Only a Little Insomnia

nothing to lose any sleep over
but I am lying here thinking of
my Great, Great, Great, Great
Grandfather Xavier Frances
who lived in Wintzenbach
(Winterbrook) France and
how he must have walked
or hooked up the wagon
to go the two miles up
the road to Oberlauderbach
(I don't know what that means)
France to see Eva, Eva Stultz
his future second wife and how
important it must have been
for him to see her, and marry her
because his first wife had died
suddenly in childbirth and he had
four children to raise and it was important
then to have a mother (as it is even now)
and so he would trek those two miles
on foot or in the wagon to court her
(woo her) and I wonder what she must
have thought of him and the prospect
of raising a dead woman's children
but of course she needed a husband
( it was the thing to do back then)
and he probably looked pretty
good back then, with his tangled
beard and farmer's clothes
and maybe she wasn't the prettiest
girl in the village and maybe there
weren't a lot of eligible men lying
around and he was willing to come
all that distance just to see her
(woo her) and so she was wooed
and what was that first night like
in that strange town, after church
and the buggy ride, perhaps her
mother kept the kids, and here
she was about to sleep with
this strange man with the tangled
beard and as she undressed she
could feel his eyes on every inch
of her imperfect skin as if she were
a pig or a cow he had traded for
and wanted to know if he would
get his money worth out of this one
and anyway she survived that night
and many others and bore him four
more children (including my future
Great Great Great grandmother Marie
Ann Keller who my future mother
Maryann was named after but
that's a story for another sleepless
time) as well as the trip across
all of France, and The Atlantic
until they got to New York
where she got sick and
wasn't allowed in and so
they went on to Niagara Falls
for two years and then moved
to Monterey in 1846 where they
hacked out a farm from the wilderness
and lived together there for another
12 years before they both died
a week apart from the cholera
(which was common then)
and they were buried side
by side in a field beside
a wood and where they
have lain all these years since
slowly dissolving like memory
until nothing was left, not even
bones and no one even knew
or thought of them anymore
until now, on this night
I've called them to come
and whisper to me
of their naked nights
together, and their puzzlement
at the world that just kept on
turning with their earthly bodies
plowed under, with the very earth
they once held in their hands
holding them in quietude,
until now, when I,
I could not sleep
and so woke them
from their dreamless sleep
to comfort me with their story
to comfort me for a time
until sleep comes
to take them
to their home
in the rich, dark soil
of my dreams.