Saying the Beads

We count the beads of being hanging round

our necks like so many monks numbering

the knots on their ropes, fingering the nodules

of prayer. Ours are teardrops touching memories,

raw reliquaries of unresolved conflicts,

unrequited emotions, reprisals regretful

for their petty motivations. Some are globules

we've never understood, actions that we can't

quite admit or reconcile with who we have become.

Others are spheroids of incompletion, efforts

begun and aborted, evidence of our lack

of courage and resolve. Yet some are startlingly

perfect in form and symmetry. We look at them

and wonder at the way they touch the holy other.

We gaze at the reflection in their florescence,

and we bend our knees to the touch of blessing.