Rooftop prayer

I’m hunched over my laptop,

   shoulders quietly grumbling,

inches from the fan that –

   even on full blast –

cannot dispel the stifling humidity,

   only agitate it.

I know I’m overdue for a trip up there, but surely

   this stuff I’m doing is Important

   and Urgent.

Prayer is not going to happen in my room –

   not tonight, in my current state.

I slip out onto the balcony,

   pulling the door shut behind me

and hanging the padlock on the laundry line

   in case of roommates overzealous to lock up.

The moonlit haze is refreshing after

   my room's fluorescent light and yellow walls.

I climb the steep ladder,

   Gingerly leaning left as I cross the thin tile strip

   (toward the slanting shingles)

To the wide-open area, where even as I approach,

the startling sweetness of scratchy coconut - 

   branches?  fluff?  hair?  What is this stuff? - 

   greets me from the treetops at eye level.

I swear I never thought hugs could be cold

   till I moved here, but that’s what this breeze is:

a soft, cool embrace straight from God

   that strokes away my stress

   and dries my Permasweat.

Remind me again why I’m not up here every night?

I listen intently to the quiet.

Not even any neighbors chatting

   at this hour, 9:15, deep into the darkness.

My eyes flit around to the lights of nearby houses,

   then settle on the moon.

I’m the moon, too, I remind myself,

   and hum : “with no light of my own

   still you have made me to shine.”

I sing Sara Groves as loudly as I dare,

   wondering if I’ll wake up the next-door neighbors

whose gaping wooden walls and glassless windows

   reveal hammocks just under this coconut tree.

I stare at the stars, trying to fathom

   that they are bigger than my life, bigger than my planet,

   and that their Maker is concerned for me.

The roof gives me space for truths I tend to crowd out.

Something about being up here

   frees me to sing, dance, talk, lie down, wait.

To listen, mostly.

   Isn’t that the heart of prayer?