Dispatch #68

Prayer Walk


At summer’s brink,
yellow forsythia haze
dissipates into thunder 

and petrichor. Spring 
was a memory 
of spring.

Bone-thin trees 
drift from their roots
in a ditch filled with dark weeds.

Peepers quaver 
and go on quavering—
the sound the mind makes 

when panic 
seizes thought. 
But tonight the mind is still, 

cinched to silence 
by syllables
vibrating through 

a loop of beads.