prayer
There has been more praying inside lately.
Feeling at the mercy of. And without logic.
Medicine is an art, not a science — and if that’s true like the doctor told me this week, well then everything is an art,
and art is prayer — it’s tuning in, plus surrendering, plus attending to.
Because there’s a boy who depends on me for everything, and I know close to nothing. And I’m too gray inside to just do what the books or parents say. Like never before, I have to intuit everything.
The craniosacral therapist lays her hands on Henry’s head, very gently, and he chills the heck out. She does it in another spot and he cries. He’s just an animal, squawking every hour for food, and yet there’s so much else coursing through him and around him that I can’t see.
The priest lays her hands on Henry’s head and I cry. I have flashes of car crashes. I hold him over concrete in my arms. I’m half-awake, crossing traffic in the mornings and he’s asleep on my chest.
I’m too tired and small. I feel myself surrender to whatever that is that makes him smile in his sleep when the woman touches his head.
His head is so beautiful it startles me. I believe in beauty — its necessity.
