Growing up, I watched my dad check the door locks every night–and I picked up the habit from him. I’m probably worse than him, actually. I have my theories about why we each acquired this compulsion, which I won’t get into here. And though I don’t know where the clinically compulsive line is, I’m probably too close to it. Besides, it sucks as a nightly ritual. This morning it occurred to me that this whole thing needs a reframing.
Shard of the sun spalled into space, hidden in bodies in far-distant days. In jubilant work, we spend our new heat, continuing creation. The task is complete. The fire within cools to a cinder. Other warm bodies become the new tinder. The cycle renewed, the new morning dawns. Heat calls to heat: our body responds.
My father and I, we check the locks– that’s what the Abels do. Neurosis passed along the line just like his Craftsman tools. I see him there, on his rounds, nocturnal sealing rite. Here I am, securing doors against encroaching night. There was a time when I asked what does this signify? Now we double check the doors and do not worry why.
The proud tongue is tied in prayer.
The parched tongue is quenched in prayer.
The prayerful tongue is loosed—
occasionally, mysteriously—
in co-creation.
Enveloping mist.
Bare trees bloom from the chill gray,
Lonely shapes in black.
Columbine flowers,
red and yellow atop long,
thin stems: spring lanterns.
I slip into sleep naming gratitudes:
A litany against fear.
Night-voices may wake and shake me,
But I’m learning not to hear.