An Invocation

All I want is a voice,
Something to echo, for at least as long as ears can hear,
As long as this arrangement of sounds can express what I feel,
Until English goes the way of Minoan.

Will you give me my voice?
If I formally request it, will you inspire me?

Sing, o Muse,
Of man’s many ways,
Our first disobedience,
Of rage and countless ills.
Help me put in verse things most difficult to grasp.

Apparently, you didn’t hear me.
If I call to you in meter and rhyme
Will that stir you?

Tell me why the seasons change,
Tell me why day falls to night,
Who, before the dust had breath,
Arranged the firmamental lights?

Still nothing.
Is it because firmamental isn’t a word?
Should I have used a more gender-neutral term than man?
Where is your intellectual breeze?
Descend.
I’ll be your damn harp.

To your silence, I dedicate these words that follow.
Not in bitterness,
But on the assumption that I’m talking to myself.

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