Matins

Always

Before the dawn, the lamplight

Constellations are strung, and the night wind’s

Diminuendo already sung at

Evensong. Vespers gave me

Finality, the day’s long liturgy resolved.

Gnostic residue coalesced to dreaming

Hours of mystic somnolence.

I should be asleep, I know.

Just silent prayer voiced in slow repose

Kyrie,

(Lord have Mercy), Kyrie.

My eyes are restless, though.

Night’s stellar lamps sing softly

Of igneous, liquid black, and

Pull a wayward mind into her patchwork

Quilt.

Righteous souls sleep soundly, but

Sleep is just a prayer without a voice.

The liminal space between midnight and the dawn,

Under the Magellanic bands that chant

Verse and chorus to their faithful few—

Watching for

Xanthic harbingers of dawn.

Yet I sing psalms offered by

Zephyrs of a Sun reborn.