‘Pray unceasingly’ exhorts the Gospel of Matthew, Benedictine monks stop every hour, at the strike of the bells in a clock tower, to say the Prayer of Hours, and these are my prayers for today – plainspoken thoughts, perhaps not poems at all.

[1] Light on the breakfast table To be eaten with bread, milk And oranges. Thanks for coming Through the night with me, bringing Me into another winter day.

[2] Leaning on a broom, I sweep This room, dust that has settled In among piles of untouched books. Fashion some part of me into Something that does something Likewise on this ancient earth.

[3] Soup steams in a glass bowl, Soon enters my body. Charged dust, Meat and vegetables, nourish me well So that I can wheel through the hours Offering thanks to that which Entered you once, and that Through you, upholds mine today.

[4] When I walk into the winter cold, Wind from the southeast enters through The lapels of my coat. Body starts Tingling – let me feel your presence For a moment, down to my bare bones, In this hour, before night falls.

[5] Paper cup, coffee, talk of doomsday Scenarios with a woman, whose face Reminds me of a Raphael’s painting, His greatest, ‘La Fornarina’ (the Baker’s Daughter). Remembering her, The painting and the need to pray, I dig on for the buried Soul into this moonless night, Murmuring, “thank you, thank you”.

You, my friend, spend The hours clicking Beads of that word rosary Round and round Hoping for salvation.

Praise instead the Hand Which keeps this Universal Rosary in motion:

Blood streaming in and out of our poor hearts. Night and day. Seasons circling over and over This beautiful earth.

Yes! Taste the wine that drips from that hand, Yes! Step into the rain, and enter grace!

After this echo Of a whale’s call Finishes traveling Through the blues To reach that eternal other, Perhaps surfacing now As a white spume Of music from a blowhole,

What shall remain Of me, is a cage Of whale bone, To be whittled away By the finders, into Bead necklaces for The restless deities of Erasure, whose razor like Hands perpetually caress Time’s face.