Halcyon Loon, Surgical Love

In a late fall morning, in my upper room,
settling into my armchair, which once belonged to Deb’s dad,
I take sips of coffee while slowly inhaling a Psalm
          (a habit I can’t break),
               and just like that, time slips a cog
and I fall into a permanent notch of astronomical twilight;
you know, that phase where the sky is bleeding out its black
and the stars are brushing their teeth, preparing for bed.

It’s been happening more lately, the slipping I mean,
          not without me tilting at omens,
or shuddering at the gothic crow near my window,
          but then, after the inner shivers, I see,
it’s not a dark alley so much as a gluey predawn warmth,
like being blanketed in the back of a horse-drawn carriage,
clopping along through a viscous mist,
          enveloped, like lying in some angelic float tank,
          enwrapped, like being held in the arms
of that anonymous monk who wrote the Cloud of Unknowing.
     And I, a happy water strider,
          a rollicking otter,
               a halcyon loon,
take to the thick silence like a March crocus—
no warning of my heart’s thaw,
no accounting for the blaze of predawn that pierces
my inflated aspirations,
     amputates my sad little deceptions,
          a quick scalpel to my sly envy,
               a major excision on my delicate ego.

          O, this surgical mercy,
          this brooding Love,
so quiet it rings a thousand bells,
so electric it stuns my donkey soul,
and readies us for a wilderness sojourn
          far into enemy territory,
just me, my donkey, and this big
          bindle-bag full of love.