Tag Archives: prayer
Prayer flags
A wanting in my wanting
If I could but draw will from the well
to fill my words –
to pray it not say it all the way through.
You have given me to pray
You have given me to pray
and it’s like a slow tornado.
I’m sucked up in circles
and at the top am in the sun
and I say,
“Take me! Take me!”
But no, now I know
it’s not a prayer.
It’s a poem and me
fleeing again. I see
the people I love
and so slide down to them
through the last of the poem,
that old fire escape we had at school.
A hearty jealousy
Sometimes prayers you have to wrestle them loose
for they bear the beloved
and you don’t want to bear
the beloved away
The needs of the needy
The needs of the needy
swallow our prayers,
piling up faster
than pleas can be sung
At Mass
I make a tent with my hands
and bow before the fire within.
I put my forehead to the dust.
Smoke rises through the eye of God
and a tear forms, a lens on the eye.
Day 11
Michael the Archangel on a platform of the station
Reaching for a tissue, I found him
in the pocket of my coat.
I’d forgotten we’d prayed to him
and I’d do it again in these days
short on light and breath.
But I hadn’t done it,
and now he stood before me
on a platform of the station.
Angels go where men won’t go
They come when you’re not there
Pray quick today before they come
For distance makes a safer prayer
A heart for the game*
Let’s not tell a boy now
he can’t play ball.
Not at twelve, or ever,
not when he loves it as he does.
Don’t spring on him a tricky valve,
slamming shut his play
today and plan for tomorrow.
Don’t take his heart, Lord,
when his heart is for the game.
*For Bas, who got some bad news.
Utrecht Journal 