All Night a Mouse
by
Jennifer Angelina Petro

All night a mouse gnaws on the wood frames
behind my bedroom wall. With so little sleep,
I try to get up and into the spirit of things,

as the early morning, sidewise sun, invites the play
of light. Birdsong phrases the day’s narrative. It’s time
to be my own ark and gather in the animals of my devotion—

safe from the already sprawling storm of thoughts.
He hears me coming in advance—in my mind’s dark light,
and soon the names–their tones—inner, and long tones

–each one a song—start floating just above the flood.
How does he do it? This ceaseless pulling me from the horizontal
to the vertical? I know he’s there most even when I don’t see him.

Abandoning myself to that faith–the self-searching heart
that’s grafted to the infinite–That is all his grace.
I have done nothing really.

Somehow, he puts up with the mouse of my wants
chewing on the bones of the life he has given.
Somehow, he loves my darkness best. For that is where

his all-joyful light lives—lives in nam, lives in
those words—those radically musical words
that own me–my knowing truly, wonderingly, whispering

in my every moment–such a fundamental notion—just repeat
some names. What could be simpler than that? A mountain,
high above the waters—waits for my ship to go aground.