For Rabbi Burt Jacobson
Blessed is the dog’s tongue
Shamanic prayer flag
Binder of vapor
Harbinger of light’s arrival.
Blessed is the brain stem
That battled entropy
All night on my behalf.
Blessed are my nether, pleasure parts
That double as effluent outlets.
Blessed are you, Ya, granter of civility,
In whose name the trash trucks
Are held in abeyance until the sunlight
Girds the plum trees.
Blessed are the medicines,
Polyglot organic molecules,
That soothe or jumpstart
My various organs, that find
My son at sea and return him
Safely to port.
Blessed is the tickle of air across cilia
And the redwood, my redwood,
Whose oxygen flows through
My blessedly still-open arteries.
Blessed is the dream of an endless
Concrete corridor, perhaps cell blocks
You were never sure
That dissolves to unreality upon waking.
Blessed is my message-free cell phone
Assuring me that no one died, that there was
No crippling plane crash while I slept.
Blessed are my books, the window,
The furnace kicking on.
And blessed is consciousness itself
Recursive synapse that discards
The neural dross and brings me the world,
Just as it is.