There Are Prayers Carved

​There are prayers carved
Into shapeless lumps, or
Carved with broken noses and 
Jaws swollen with the mumps.

They sit upon and crack
The chair where all of our
Souls sit. Pure, Divine
Thoughts and feelings scour

The continents, decency
Pervades, thoughts wear
Tuxedos or bolo ties,
And we lift in the air.

But in these images of air,
We carve out of focus hands,
Eyes, creatures hard to identify,
With sorrowful, chestnut bands,

They confuse the sky with
Curlicues and shadows, until
A chill, wet wind whips,
Clouds crackle, a soul grows ill,

The sea heaves gray and green,
Vertiginous and driving rain,
No sky, no horizon,
A dissolution on the windowpane,

And the light grows dim,
The stars twist into smoking
Wisps, the sun is a dull
Thumbprint, the croaking

Of the swinging pasture gate,
The child left on the porch,
The old man lying in bed,
The mother in the woods with a torch,

Until the light will come and
Turn the texture of the dark
And the blind can see
And walk in the gold-green park.