about surprising gray mornings

mornings without sunrise

I wake early, two days in a row,

to walk with bare feet the hundred steps

down toward the water.  Each time I grow

slightly irritated at what I can’t control:

a grayness of sky, feeling owed some show

after stirring myself from sleep. 

Gathering disappointments from the dock,

I pull my body back toward the house

and run into a vastly-spun spider’s web,

thin lines and slivers stuck against my skin.

I surprise myself with sadness –

to have destroyed something so complete

with the thoughtlessness of my body,

to uncreate what was made despite me. 

Peeling the web from my arm, I study

each detail; I think of every individual thread

cast out to the wind, drawn to each other

by a threat of brokenness, longing to be whole. 

With closed-eyes I imagine it complete,

imagine sunlight sneaking through its fragile holes. 

For two mornings, instead of taking in colors

I did not create, I pray little

silver prayers, delicate and fine,

prayers asking for rawness of courage:

to cast out my loves like webbing,

mostly just to take the risk.