The cup of coffee at rest in its place
seethes in its resting. Like dark incense it
arrests you with its rising steam rising and
welcomes the morning come well your way.
You do well to have a thing, some plain thing
call you into the day--like a monk's bell
bids prayer or the cell solitude--a thing
routine to seize fears and raise awareness.
When all the gods have died and not a thing
lasts to pray to, you stop trusting in gods.
Still you pray, but no more as discipline,
as deed. No need to pray you pray still
and praying still you plead not for gifts
from the gods but you obtain the grace
of the bare deed, its elegance and ease,
its goodness and mercy. Still in
prayer you listen for benedictions
of the commonplace but cling to none.
Anything simple serves while you observe
your day in its simple and dreary detail.
If you listen close you can still hear cold
water from the ER basin dripping with
ruthless habit as a gunshot brain dribbles
gray onto the concrete cushion and
the daughter, too young, demands to see
then disturbs the hush, "I had to be sure."
You choose to let her see and you choose that
over the unhappier consequence--
not seeing and not knowing the mess made
by a depression in the brain.
Bare deeds do not bear the burden of drama
but not a thing you do affects you alone.
