hearing prayer

moon,

I was wondering:

do you hear prayer?

Not the folded silence

at the edge 

of the bed.

I was imagining

something louder,

 a hand cupped

 on each side of the mouth

and a shout out—

a sound

 whose urgency

perforates every layer

of sky and wind

even sky

and wind

that  hasn’t 

formed

or even

 arrived.  I was

 thinking

 of a mother

calling out to her son

who is too far away

for to touch, too far

but for a tremble.

I was thinking:  everything's

stacked against her,

a whole world of sound

pushing itself inside

of her

mouth taking each word

and turning it

into action—

where please come home

safe becomes

an

 anagram's

 ambigram.

Will you liaise with her?

Be the hands,

  two cupped

around the mouth

of the heart—until all

hindrance,

all burden

is distilled out of it all,

through your breath,

and you hold each letter, each

word in the palm of you?

 Will you court

each little flame

 against the wind

and carry them

up into all your phases?

And when you turn

 toward the gods

  will they finally regain

some of

their purity?

Will they be stirred?

Because here you are 

an Orpheus

 who can  move

stone,

can get by

every ferocious thing

with your lung

 and lyre—

And when

it’s all without,

without and within

it has no choice

 but to becomes so true

that this boy has to return,

or he has to at least

 turn his head through

 the noise—

Little boy,

it’s been a long time

arriving.  Your refuge

was a coracle

your mother bore

her whole life

even when she

unleashed your strain

on the rope, and had to call

 herself

raw the farther

away you got.

Through

 all

 that noise.

  The fog,

the boats,

 loud lights,

the gods,

their storms

and her forte

of forging

love

 and life—

it all

 absorbs

 her.

How many mothers,

or boys

 and men,

die that way?

  Calling out?

  How many unbeating

 hearts do you hold,

 moon,

to let all the silt

filter through

 your fingers,

to foster it all,

until the wind

winnows

what's fallen

and it is becomes

 what it started

out to be

 in the first place:

an utterance,

a tongue lifted

off the cold floor

of the mouth

and held,

breast to cheek

while everything,

inside and out,

starts a chain

 reaction

and mirrors,

right down

 to the molecular

 beginning,

everything,

the beginning of everything.

Of it all.