Monday, 16 June 2025

UHTCEARE* by Jennie Hart


 Under the potent night sky

Hang threads of memories which linger till dawn

Taunting my restless mind

Constant feverish thoughts break through my half-wakefulness

Each moment extends into my never-ending moonlit hours

Adding to and multiplying scenes from times past

Reminding me of thoughts I need to bury

Empty from my mind; face another day

*Uhtceare (plural) is an old English (Anglo-Saxon) word for pre-dawn (uht) cares and anxieties (ceare (plural) or caru (singular). 

Trouble sleeping is clearly not a modern thing. 

In our May meeting for the warm-up task, we took this ancient word to explore some of the things we might write about for the June writing task on sleep.

4 comments:

Liz said...

Time lying awake and seeing random scenes from ones life pass through ones mind is something I can relate to. However, as my daughter said to me recently, 'Mum, I really don't know whether what I'm remembering is a real memory or just something you took a photograph of!' Before we took so many photographs it was just scenes that popped up now and then from the past. 'Scenes of A Life' - a good title for a novel!

Irena Szirtes said...

A powerful evocation of those 'threads of memories' (love that phrase) which begin that process in the night... powerful, because you don't name them, it would spoil it if you did.

Suzie Pearson said...

I can totally relate to "taunting my restless mind"!

Anonymous said...

Thank you Liz, Irena, Suzi for your comments. I believe my memories when I lie awaken are real but when I am in a half sleep which I call my wake- sleep (I am asleep but aware of my surroundings), my thoughts become a mixture of memory and the visions of the creative part of my brain which I suppose is what we call a dream.