I have never fancied myself a poet, but when my friend Anne posted the following challenge to her FB wall, I had to play along. It helped that I’d had the amount of sleep referenced in the title… I didn’t even know that I knew the word “enervate.”

Poetry Assignment: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost is one of the most beloved American poems. Borrow the exact rhyme scheme (AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD), rhythm and meter (iambic tetrameter), and number of stanzas (4) to write your own poem. Winter may figure in, but that’s optional. Mortality may figure in, but that’s optional.

“Three Hours of Sleep”

I cannot sleep to save my life
My sofa’s –not my husband’s– wife
A sleeping bag, the living room
And not my bed, is causing strife.

Insomnia cruelly entomb’d
My marriage bed in dismal gloom
Anxiety, viola, awake!
As husband snores a wistful bloom.

Employment fears: a gloomy lake
Where I shall not my dreams partake
Nor bury in the winter chill
Spring bulb of hope to enervate.

It’s easier to take a pill
And yet I choose to lie here still
My sleep afar, to pay the bill
for modern time’s grist in the mill.