Poetry Response - For the Sleepwalkers

The first half of the poem is talking about people who are actually sleepwalking. They have no fear and are never harmed. They walk to the stairs and not the window. They walk through the doorway instead of the mirror. The path on the carpet is worn and there is an invisible arrow leading them. They have done this before and haven't ever been harmed and "always they return home safely, like blind men who know it is morning by feeling shadows." 

When they wake up, they're the same person they were before. Then Hirsch starts to talk about how our hearts should leave our bodies and be fearless like sleepwalkers. He says that we have to trust our hearts and not fear experiences. "We have to learn the desperate faith of sleepwalkers who rise out of their calm beds and walk through the skin of another life". We have to put away our fears, or "drink the stupefying cup of darkness", and when you wake up, you'll be refreshed.