I Will Lay Them Down

I Will Lay Them Down

(“At daybreak, Lord, You hear my voice; at daybreak I plead my case to You and watch expectantly.” Psalm 5:3)

I rarely see the sunrise these days,
and my offerings are tiny relics of dreams
that braided my anxieties and hopes in a fantasy of shadowy light.

I rarely see the dawn break these days.
More than anything else I sense the rays sneaking
up on me, stripes upon my eyelids, beams broken up
by slits in the window shades.

Before the fog lifts, before the moon shifts below the trees,
before the sun kisses everything, before the morning breeze,
I awake, no longer startled by the images that haunt my nights.
But I do not rise,
I do not speak,
I do not pass from ink to light
until the pain has squeezed the reticence from
my groggy mind.

But I will lay it all outside my room,
I will write it all before the looming day
has its way with me. Here is my fear,
my façade, my vibrating heart, my outlawed
conscience and hopes as thin as smoke.
Here are my beloveds, here are my wounds,
here are the missing places at the table,
here are the my mother, my father, my sister, my friend;
here are all I dream of who have left this world too soon.

I will lay them down and listen. I will lay them down until
the fire of love inflames my soul again to weep or laugh
with the wind in my face. I will lay them down until
the waters have wings, until, like eagles, they take flight
into the bosom of the Uncreated One.