Kwame Alexander’s latest community poem is an ode to rest and relaxation : NPR

NPR poet-in-residence Kwame Alexander recently challenged listeners to write a poem about napping or anything related to it, sleeping, dreaming, relaxing….

One thing we have confirmed, hundreds of you spend a lot of time thinking about rest and relaxation.

From school children to the elderly, we received over 1200 poems from all over the country.

Here is Alexander’s latest crowdsourced poem from the community.

It’s called the Cover of Words.

If I could…

I want us to take a break. I want us to think about how much better off we all are when we rest.

I would love to take a restful nap on my king bed. to stack my pillows around my head A soft, warm, handmade quilt, my cozy nook to curl up with my favorite book

into a blanket of words

Let’s read each other bedtime stories while I drift into unconsciousness. separate me from today

I just want to pause for a few precious moments to quiet my mind, to slip out of my world of lists and piles of laundry, last night’s dishes in the sink

I want to rest but I have a test. I want to sleep but my work is too deep.

I’d love to give in to the tugging of my eyelids begging them to close, but the email in front of me deserves a reply, so I sigh deeply and shrug, resisting her tugging and attempt to compose again

I’d like to hide in the middle of the day for a little quiet in the soft quiet rooms of the old couch in front of the fire, dogs snoring at my feet, fresh snow drifting outside my window,

I want to lay my head on a pillow soft as a feather bed, And let my body sink in peace, While my eyelids slowly close.

I’d love to pull down the pinpoint stars from the sky, I’d weave soft moonbeams through them,

to climb the stairs my imagination has made, i want to be a bird, unencumbered, i want to be me, unbound.

I just want to nap and wonder and hike

and dream

Let go, ego dissolution, like honey in tea.

Dreams where we can be everything we ever wanted to be. I would like to sleep In my bed. Unable to access the fear in my head.

In my dreams, food, money and life are not relevant

And I would play with magic monkeys.

I want to live in a world where we dream when we fall asleep and don’t have a nightmare when we wake up

When I was a little girl I had dreams about powers that could change the world, in my dreams I could fly, now I’m seventeen and I no longer dream that I could be a fairy queen, I have dreams where I’m invisible and no one can see me

I would like answers:

Why do we do what we do? Why do we learn how we do it? We are no longer curious. We are no longer present.

Exhausted, zombies roam the streets. Work without end in sight. We work to eat. We eat to live. We live to work

Real life beckons with every sheep we try to count and when my head hits the pillow the whole world falls away.

I want to relieve my shoulders

from her standing at attention, my brain from telling,

I would like to, but I can’t right now. Too much to do, not the right time. I have work to do, places to be, but what if I just escaped and slept endlessly?

I’d love to see you try. A moment of nothingness, ceaseless amazement, boundless floors. Endless possibilities and a thousand more.

I want to find you in my dream

to hear your voice again whistling wisdom and wit stories and songs

Scents of freedom, molecules of unconditional love,

I would like to meet you in the space between sleeping and waking, where we belong to both worlds and yet have nothing to thank either place for

I would love to feel that familiar feel of my hand in yours again as we walk in weird and scary places while my heart is pounding loudly

I’d like to listen more closely than the arrogant kid I was who often dismissed your speech as outdated and irrelevant. I would like to travel in a time machine before the years have passed and you died of old age, to apologize to you

What I’d love to hear most of all, though, is your exhale of joy – short and unmistakable – you’re the only one I know who laughs even in his sleep.

I’d like to wake up in the afternoon sun, gentle fingertips lifting an eyelid, your sweet voice, “Daddy! Daddy! Are you in there?”

If I could,

I want to feel good.

Lying on the clouds and not falling through.

I want to surrender

I want to rest in peace

I want to rest my heart from the daily pangs of an unkind world

I want to forget the faces whose judgments urge me

I want to be your pillow, the firmness to support you, the softness to hug you,

I want to wake up and realize it’s spring, I want to be remembered as a fearless dreamer

I want to close my eyes and open my heart to take a nap, wrapped in silence

I want to lie down in my bed. Better wake up.

Rise, ready to meet the challenges each day brings. And then I would like another cup of coffee, greetings

The Birdsongs

The willow trees

The warmth of the sun

I want to meet

The bright new day Embraced in love, refreshed, new, ready to change the world But first I’ll dream, I’ll dream of the world I’ll change

And then I’ll change it But now I want to dream.

This community poem was created using submissions from:

James Breeden, Durham, NC

Doug Thiele, Norfolk, Va

Megan Dixon, Milwaukee, WI

Michael Ceran, Charlotte, NC

Kaley Burke, Missula

Lee Robinson, Comfort, TX

Samantha McCulloch, Washington, DC

Erin Lupold, Mount Hebron High School

Grace Russell, Pineville, NC

Ellen Somers, Syracuse, NY

Pippa Mahmood, ca

Michael L. Guss, Stone Mountain, GA

Kit Collard, Mesa, AZ

Kieralyn Kennington, AZ

Carrie Granato, Clearwater Beach, FL

Niki Cruickshank, San Carlos, CA

Citlaly Espinosa Silvestre, Mesa, AZ

Ashley Mitchell, San Carlos, CA

Eleanna Swartz, San Carlos, CA

Dan Grote, Canaan US Prison, Waymart, PA

Emily Mack, Grand Rapids, MI

Anna VanderLaan, Ann Arbor, MI

Katie Le, Reston, VA

Felicito Fernando, Tennessee

Alyssa Weedon, ca

Whitney Lewis, Atlanta, GA

Terence Parker, Maine

Anand Karnad, San Antonio, TX

Priyanka Singh, San Francisco, CA