All Night a Mouse
\nby
\nJennifer Angelina Petro<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
All night a mouse gnaws on the wood frames
\nbehind my bedroom wall. With so little sleep,
\nI try to get up and into the spirit of things,<\/p>\n
as the early morning, sidewise sun, invites the play
\nof light. Birdsong phrases the day\u2019s narrative. It\u2019s time
\nto be my own ark and gather in the animals of my devotion\u2014<\/p>\n
safe from the already sprawling storm of thoughts.
\nHe hears me coming in advance\u2014in my mind\u2019s dark light,
\nand soon the names–their tones\u2014inner, and long tones<\/p>\n
–each one a song\u2014start floating just above the flood.
\nHow does he do it? This ceaseless pulling me from the horizontal
\nto the vertical? I know he\u2019s there most even when I don\u2019t see him.<\/p>\n
Abandoning myself to that faith–the self-searching heart
\nthat\u2019s grafted to the infinite–That is all his grace.
\nI have done nothing really.<\/p>\n
Somehow, he puts up with the mouse of my wants
\nchewing on the bones of the life he has given.
\nSomehow, he loves my darkness best. For that is where<\/p>\n
his all-joyful light lives\u2014lives in nam, lives in
\nthose words\u2014those radically musical words
\nthat own me–my knowing truly, wonderingly, whispering<\/p>\n
in my every moment–such a fundamental notion\u2014just repeat
\nsome names. What could be simpler than that? A mountain,
\nhigh above the waters\u2014waits for my ship to go aground.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n