God’s Voice Was Not In
The wind is none of your business, God said,
and neither is the sky or its blue or the bird
I pinned alone in the sky’s center or the song
I put in its beak, no matter how many mornings you try
you will never succeed in holding the same notes
in your throat. So prayer is a plaything.
Sawdust-stuffed. The plush mouse toothed
by the tight-jawed cat as a gift to convince itself
it can still hunt. And what a miracle it is.
To look at one’s hands folded or steepled
and think that they have any power, to imagine a good
God as a great ear hovered above. To imagine anything –
even your own self, even your own soul – is
listening, somewhere, to what you want it to hear.