Roundabout

Given its head, the night runs faster than a man can breathe
Its nostrils pant, its dusky edges heave,
And I am pulled from sleep too soon:
The yellow tones of morning and the morning song
Too early crowed, but not in the cock's throat.

The call to prayer comes early:
"Our alarm clock," quipped a friend,
Indicating the humble mosque at his front door.
We have one, too. We all do in this garden city,
This oasis overrun but not yet ruined,

And the mosque, with its staggered chorus
Of muezzin, fairly owns us, night and day:
There's hardly time to leave off praying my litany of regrets
From a day spent seeking more help than I have given
Before I'm called back to my knees.

I do not join the sweated worship of the immigrants,
But I think of prayer far more here than ever before,
For God is great indeed, and it is better to pray than sleep,
Even if all one does is pray to sleep a little more
Before the panting night is stabled, brushed, and fed,
And the mu'adhdhin clears his rooster throat.

Copyright JaPes, 2007

*"Lente, . . .": "Slowly, run slowly, ye horses of the night!" (from Christopher Marlowe's Tragicall Historie of Doctor Faustus); "Allahu ackbar!": "God is great!" (An arresting exclamation these days, but like U2 and that "song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles," "we're stealin' it back!").