Not near bell bongs I hear early Sundays
from Grace Lutheran across North Lookout,
my neighbor’s gift to the universe plays
in earnest (while warped sun shimmers about
red-oak treetops—hovering in its rise
and fall) like a chorus of nuns’ caring
call to matins or nocturns, dear reprise
of some ancient invitation to sing
hymns of praise. Sometimes they stir me from sleep
at dawn, my drowse certain angels surround
me. Oftentimes, lying there, my heart keeps
imagining we’re making love, unbound
in a clover field. Sometimes I just stare,
hearing their sacred, inharmonic prayer.
Roger Armbrust
January 19, 2009
