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Until All That Was Left Was a Voice

Fear wanted my name sealed within

A question not even my bluest instinctCould unfold. But then the wind began to flutter

The first bright image I heard make the darkness sing.

To think, before this, I felt ready to lose the miracleOf adding a few quiet feathers to the heart.

To think: I trusted that silence was my destiny.

You’ve believed before that your destiny was with silence.

Then a wanting suddenly feathered this bright instinctAlready added to your name, a windy heart

No question will seal or quiet, the bluest flutter.

Nothing can undo the miracle of hearingWhat has yet to unfold. Trust what you began:

Only you can make your darkness sing.

To banish that empty kind of praying, I try

Tilting this pain-invented loudness from my breath.I swear a new season lives there. I hear it humming

With every reason to make the rain into an answer.

Whether I speak or stay silent, I desireThe good promise in each body to continue.

The sky is where I choose to look now.

Don’t forget the sky’s answer inside you,

Each rain-cloud kind of hummingWith breath. Whether tried or tilted,

The right prayer will invent a new reason

Not to banish the good body still living there.You can choose to hear it now, every season,

This emptying of any knowing that promises........

© The Nation