Midnight Psalm

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Awake in bed while others sleep, I
Bless you others who remain awake:
Clerk, behind glass 'til dawn for my convenience;
DVMs who nursed my dog through his worst night;
EMTs who kept me talking in the dark while
Firefighters sliced my car apart;
Ghanaian on night shift alone among towers of tires, and
Hero who towed my wreck through a chilly drizzle --
I'd had coffee and dessert at the end of my day
Just as, saving me, you both had started yours;
Kid who slept on the tile of an empty diner, who
Leapt up, straightening his apron to make my omelet;
Mom's attendants hoisting her back into bed while the
Nurse with her honeyed accent phoned, "She's all right";
Operator, who sighed before sunrise and dispatched a
Plumber to stanch the gusher in my lawn;
Quellers of cranks like me in the ER at midnight;
Railroad engines' whistles faint through the window,
Sirens' wails,
Trucks' rattles and growls -- sounds of you
Urgent drivers hurtling miles away while I lie idly
Venerating alphabetically you
Who work or watch or weep this night:
Exemplars of service: by my memories
You all bless me with another gift -- of
Z Z Z

Image by Susan Rouse.
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A favorite warm-up for my seventh grade drama students was to improvise lines of dialogue in alphabetical order. My turn. The same idea forms nine of the Psalms and much other Hebrew poetry.

The story behind two of the late-night heroes on this list is told in the essay Those Who Work or Watch This Night (01/2020) on my personal blog The Word Sanctuary.- WSS

Accessible Poem (for Brandy)

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I know my dog some day won't somersault.
For now, she stretches brandy-colored limbs
to the seat of a plush chair and hops to the center.
She kneads the cushion as if she's digging for bones;
her claws rake the linen zip-zip-zip.
She lowers her brandy face between her paws,
her body now a sleek black slope
from feathery tail to velvety upturned bat-ears.
Her eyes, glinting coffee black, find mine.
She yaps, as if to say, "Hey! Watch this!"
She tucks her chin beneath, flips belly up,
then kicks the air, and stops. Again, she kicks.
Breathing hard, she rolls to one side, at rest.
May she, by these lines, always be accessed.

Brandy in her favorite chair.

Brandy photographed by her dog sitters Diane and Renée.
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This poem has taken a long time to shake off its origin as a facetious response to a professor who disparaged "accessible" poets I'd praised on my blog, Billy Collins and Ted Kooser. The closer I got to just describing something particular to Brandy, the more I liked it.

For me, it's a bonus to realize that I've unintentionally written an homage to one of Shakespeare's more accessible sonnets.

By coincidence, Brandy got out of the yard just hours after I finished this poem, and for a day and night, I feared the worst. Read about her adventure in my personal blog The Word Sanctuary, The Team That Helped My Dog Find Home.

I include an image by my friend Susan Rouse, who often walks with my dog and me. Susan's practice of painting something almost every week was the impetus for my creating this blog. - WSS

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