Sleepytime Tea

box of sleepytime tea next to a teapot on a stove

Seductive valerian and maidenly chamomile,

same herbs my great

great grandmother snipped and brewed,

summer garden wrapped in tissue,

insomniac’s aphrodisiac,

you promise I’ll wake in the morning

like wood sorrel opening

its neon yellow flowers

to the first

touch of the sun.

Come, blessed leaves,

soak in this boiling bath;

release slithers of scent

into steam if you must,

but save every single soporific cell

of sleep-inducing power

for me.

O liquid lullaby,

soother of worry

and dream enticer,

drift away with me

into a nightlong

river of rest.

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Mary Camille Thomas

Mary Camille Thomas is a native of Santa Cruz who is grateful to make her home on the California coast once more after living internationally and on the road. She studied comparative literature at UC Davis and received a master’s degree in library science from UCLA, which gave her a way to earn a living while making a life among books. Her poetry and essays have appeared in the Monk in the World Guest Post Series, Moving Force Journal, Presence, Porter Gulch Review, Second Wind, Sisters Singing, and The New Story, and she has completed a novel called What Lies Buried about a man reckoning with his family’s Nazi past.

4 thoughts on “Sleepytime Tea”

  1. I may have to switch from plain Chamomile to Sleepytime tea in the evening. Sounds lovely, just like your poem.Love, Mom “Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.”    –Maya Angelou

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