God In The Cloud

Originally posted 12/13/2005.

Awake too late
I punch a few keys on the laptop,
find a singer,
hover there.
She sings in Arabic,
her voice a revolving sword
opening a path to heaven.

It’s still hard for me to believe
that here I am in Massachusetts
and I can search for
a song of the desert and find it.

If the air can carry Algeria to New England,
may the same air lift me and carry me
over the Atlantic, over the Atlas Mountains, over
any number of homes and paddocks
full of real sheep left uncounted
by those in need of sleep.
I will leave them uncounted myself
and shall instead slip away
when it is time
instead of forcing the moment.

I can revere the entire world these days.
I can no more lose God
on a planet this large
and this full of music
than I can lose my sense of self
in honest prayer.