Prayer 

Offered at the Festival Celebrating the Return of the Seventeen Year Magico-Cicada,
June 1996, Kingston, New York

White noise   poised in miasmas
    among the atmospheres
of dying lylac
 and the rain
   of black  walnut
                      blossoms

Your sound
   in swelling ranks and choruses
behind the morning birds
  behind the noon trucks
    behind yourselves

Overwhelming
  ocean of voices,
    vast depot of messages

If ever before
          then now
If forever   before
                then    forever

May the sounds in my head
        extend
                forfend
            defend
                      upend
                                      surrender me

May your judgements be pertinent
your surveillance, profound

May the poisons
    and excisions
         of the human
      saturation of all habitat

not terminate the brood