Compline

 

“Watch and pray.”~Matthew 46:21

 

The deepest prayer watches

the play of this mind

as a mother broods over

her feverish child.

The Witness is a comforter

who untangles thought

with her glow, her feathered

rustling over the ocean

of silence. 

Our roots are in the waters

before creation.

Isn't the purest worship

just to pour one breath

into another, a fragrant

offering that turns the stars

in their wheels of stillness?

Ours is a priestly office

in the temple of bones,

kindling the mystery

that rents the veil

between inside and out.

To repose in the rhythms

of unknowing.

To make a wine-dark oblation

of our certainty. 

Now let some soft supernova

burst beneath your ribs.

Don't name it.

Just let the wellspring

spill over your fontanelle

and carry hope everywhere

on a careless wind.

Betroth your heart to the night.

It's easy to say that a Goddess

pervades every dust mote

and bears the morning sun.

But you must taste and see

that the earth is made

of crushed emeralds,

sweet diamonds hammered

into grains of amazement

by seeing itself.