Awake from a dream
of failure as a college professor,
I get up to pee.
Settling back into bed warmth,
I find that in my absence
demons slipped in, and they mean
business. Tonight, they employ mind
swirlers and leg tremors,
leaving brain and guts wrenched.
What’ll I do what’ll I do?
Work, relationship, future–all shit.
With effort, I herd them
from mind to belly. There,
after a lengthy, but fair exchange,
they descend into my legs
and, with a few snide remarks,
out through my
toes.

(No. 51 in a series of responses to Han-Shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

Beware the demons that are afoot in the early morning hours. However, it seems there is no way to avoid them, and perhaps they are just another hideous form of Pain, the Teacher. The only possible way to deal with them, as far as I know, is to use endlessly available body knowledge, which is not found in the mind. For me, it’s usually in my lower belly or solar plexus (chakras 2 and 3). There, one can suffer exchanges that would worry the mind to illness, but that the belly can handle. A stuffed animal may help.

When the demons exit, they and I are changed.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)