Lana Hechtman Ayers

Prayer Is a Painted Lavender Field

I remember
van Gogh’s Lavender Field II
not with my eyes
but a sense
closest to proprioception
how my body
held color inside
as if I were a sunset
meadow burning into
the retinas of God.

Now at an age where
even lasers can’t restore
colors to my vision,
a fragile symmetry
of dark coming on
too quickly,

this flesh house where I dwell
a carapace of failures,
nerve cells a riot,
I want time

to broadcast whatever
signals still catch.

My mother spent
afternoons tuned
to talk radio
about cars
and never learned
to drive,
fed us the same
seven meals
week after week.

Voices can be company
even when the message
is lost.

Grandfather loved
to sing in Polish
and eat cold soup.

My right ear can
no longer hear
my cat Emily’s purr.
Her throat vibrates
against my touch.

Even sound removed
from language
can be prayer.

I remember
lavender violet indigo
chimes that rang me
like cathedral bells
way back
when God was listening.

Lana Hechtman Ayers shepherded over a hundred fifty poetry volumes into print in her role as managing editor for three small presses. Her work appears in such journals as Rattle, The London Reader, Peregrine, and The Comstock Review, as well as in her latest collection, The Autobiography of Rain (Fernwood Press, 2024). Visit her online at LanaAyers.com.