Istanbul

Here the call to prayer isn't looked on as music,
but what else can it be, as it hovers over the city
like a swarm of birds or benign insects singing

in priase of the sky, eternal and temporal
divinity who, too evidently, is not with us?
In the hour before dawn the verse grows by one line,

not otherwise heard, urging the supremacy
of prayer over sleep. But what kind of salvation
would it be that broke us from our dreams?

In New York there are many churches,
but I do not remember their bells.

~John Ash, Leaving New York III