Prayer

February poem

“Like the leaves browning in sun and greening in spring and serving nothing else.”

Prayer
Grass ticks across my skin and it is better than a clock.
An ant will not climb onto my hand.
The sun is so bright that I can’t open my eyes.

An ant will not climb onto my hand when I reach for it,
but when I close my eyes
I can feel her feet tracing each fissure
in the cliffs of my fingers.

When I close my eyes I can’t see anything
except grass or maybe blood-vessels
on the backs of my eyelids,
on the surface of my eyes.
I imagine myself covered in insects
bees touching their knees to my own,
praying, worshipping something,
spiders spinning from my hair
my freckles crawling, shifting.

I arise and only see the imprint
left in the grass,
a space already disappearing
like the dreamlike idea of loneliness.

Eyes shut in the sun, it is hard to reawaken.

The light in my mind is so ecstatic
that I think of snow, dazzling paradox,
drench of white, chill hugeness.
I trace pathways in my mind, where, once,
I walked alone through woods
grown up from the dead soil,
grown not for me, grown not for birds, or air,
grown not for snow to gather upon like a gown.
Arching, the sun shines through the stretch
of the enamored trees and I think
of cathedrals
and what this world looks like
in worship of heat or snow.