my doxology is toxicology:

my early morning hymn in response to the exquisite vocal calls of orioles sounds like an old norse god nursing a toothache and my noontime grace sung to the goddess of cornucopia is like a cop when you step hard on the sore corn on his left foot…in the afternoon the poisonous hemlock and ragweed fall to the slaughter diety of my mower as promiscuous rabbits and red winged black birds perched in tall timothy flee my wrathful screaming of gloria in excelsis deo then the evening radio tells me tone deafness is a dyslexia caused by defects in the auditory cortex but my high school choral master, father (purple lips) gregory, always said i had too much hair in my ears and to open my mouth like i was singing but “don’t let any sound come out” and i remember as a kid we listened to percy faith and mitch miller on the rca and even sang along to the bouncing ball on tv…my father was a beautiful tenor in church and my gay brother sang and tap danced broadway tunes in bay area shows (at blue licks state park he once got the whole white family reunion to come out of their shelter to watch him perform singing in the rain on a picnic table) and all three of my sisters played piano and had to perform for company on saturday nights…my great hope came when my older brother went to college in ’63 and over the summer brought home a bob dylan record…now here was a musical god who couldn’t sing and i took up his cause like a wild banshee running through the forest with a hard rain’s a-gonna fall and to this day when I’m alone in the garden on a moonless night i can achieve a kind of harmonic self- forgetfulness when I belt out well I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat