HAMMER-HEADED, crack-backed in my bed, I embark upon the initial drifts of sleep. From the centre of self to the centre of being, I search, in the gentle stillness of night's prayer, the miraculous trip to the immaterial. Yet, at the base of thought, an orifice opens. As through a slit in a shutter, I see prehensile appendages, viscous surfaces, rough tongues, grey-white gristle eyes caked in fat, scaled hides crackling with knotted strength. Leers, foul intentions writ bold, and self-glorified grimaces announce an unclean host. A sick swell of anger, curses, snarls, and a rumble like churning intestines together boil in spite at the foundations of my prayer.

I PULL the pillows from beneath my head, extend my body, and count up my recumbent bones like a rosary. A concentration of intention, more a winged beat out of physics, brings an ebb of infinite washing over the humble, the fantastically temporal. Communion's great vine, a palpable whirl of ether and stars, stretches between all distance and me. I intone an unvoiced hymn of admiration, of mercy begged, of hope cradled, of guidance desired.

ALL ELSE now is non-existent, all but my bride sleeping next to me, whom I call to my creator's attention, convey into divine care. So too my children, and lastly myself; whereupon the vows seal themselves; the fallible soul leaps in God's peace, and turns to the tasks it is set. I grope for the pillow, bury my head, and leave my unchained spirit to maraud among dreams.