Prayer

In the morning it is the barely perceptible release of your name from my lips, emitted as a whisper, quietly slipping from me and into the quiet white light of the dawn.  I may not even realize the passage, I may never understand its origin, but I do remember the song that plays in my head when I form the letters that form your name.

In the mid-day it is an interruption, a pause...reflection of a time and a moment, when I sense the presence of you though you are quite distant.  Your silence is worse than well-chosen words so I fill in the gap myself...imagining words bespoken, words imagined, the religion of you converting my brain to a simple flame that alights and darts to your gaze.  I murmur your name louder, and it fills the room, occupies the void, echoes and returns to me a picture-postcard of a perfect face.

In the evening it is a mourning, the reluctant admission of yet another day without you. It is a name emitted as a sigh, drawn out and faltering, a wondering if this might be a collapsing ending or a potential beginning. It is unknown and unintended.  It is a consequence, a potential sin.  It is covered in guilt and put away to wash clean.  It is a goodbye.

And there are other times,

mostly after nightfall,

when the morning is still far and the light is still dim

and I merely imagine your name

and it is not a word

and it is not a noun

and it is not a noise, it is not a sound

and it is not a song, and it is not some call,

and it is not just letters that happen to fall.

Rather

it is simply something else. Something wholly and entirely something else.

It is an ache.