Each Day is Framed

Each Day is Framed

(“Or else let them come to me for protection. Let them make peace with me. Yes, let them make peace with me.” Psalm 27:5)

When each day begins framed with pain
the sun is hidden in the corners.
Birdsongs are fragments of scratched paint,
the best thoughts are cracked and peeling
despite the finest efforts of restoration.

Sometimes I feel the need to explain, dip my
pen in the blackest ink
and begin again. In Prose. In Short Sentences.
In Declarations. In Descriptions that get to the
Point
of pain.

But I write between moments, through half-open windows,
while the earth is crammed with minutes I’ve wasted
waiting for abatement. Could I write in clinical paragraphs
complete with footnotes and citations
some might believe this artless student of doubt.

But the days begin and end the same,
my brain the biggest enemy. How God inhabits
the letters, the numbers, the synapses and numbness
is a question for others better than me. I do not suffer well,
do not joy in it, revel in it or find a sliver of meaning in forces
that keep me pressed to the ground.

I am a mere dependent, assigned to the edges of my art.
The craft I laughed so passionately is untuned in the corner
and silent. Still I must write, and write well, not excellent; but
true.

And many will question the frame, wonder of my faith,
(as I also wonder), and note the stains upon the painting where
the shadow of pain blocked the sun’s healing rays. And

Peace is beyond my reach, though, I should believe,
it still inhabits the first brushstrokes beneath the layers
of grey. I await the colors of the day.