72 Prayer poems

Mighty, praised beyond compare, Rock of my salvation, Build again my house of prayer, For Thy habitation! Offering and libation, shall a ransomed nation Joyful bring There, and sing Psalms of Dedication! Woe was mine in Egypt-land, (Tyrant kings enslaved me); Till Thy mighty, out-stretched Hand From oppression saved me. Pharaoh, rash pursuing, vowed my swift undoing— Soon, his host That proud boast ’Neath the waves was rueing! To Thy Holy Hill, the way Madest Thou clear before me; With false gods I went astray— Foes to exile bore me. Torn from all I cherished, almost had I perished— Babylon fell, Ze-ru-ba-bel Badest Thou to restore me! Then the vengeful Haman wrought Subtly, to betray me; In his snare himself he caught— He that plann’d to slay me. (Haled from Esther’s palace; hanged on his own gallows!) Seal and ring Persia’s king Gave Thy servant zealous. When the brave Asmonéans broke Javan’s chain in sunder, Through the holy oil, Thy folk Didst Thou show a wonder— Ever full remained the vessel unprofanèd; These eight days, Lights and praise, Therefore were ordainèd. Lord, Thy Holy Arm make bare, Speed my restoration; Be my martyr’s blood Thy care— Judge each guilty nation. Long is my probation; sore my tribulation— Bid, from Heaven, Thy shepherds seven Haste to my salvation!

Oh, laud the Lord, the God of hosts commend, Exalt his pow’r, advance his holiness: With all your might lift his almightiness; Your greatest praise upon his greatness spend. Make trumpet’s noise in shrillest notes ascend; Make lute and lyre his loved fame express; Him let the pipe, him let the tabret bless, Him organ’s breath, that winds or waters lend. Let ringing timbrels so his honor sound, Let sounding cymbals so his glory ring, That in their tunes such melody be found As fits the pomp of most triumphant king. Conclude: by all that air or life enfold, Let high Jehovah highly be extolled.

Go to the mother, to the father, to the house where no trees grow, to the bedroom, the door closed, to her fear and to his fear, and their shame, their longing, and to their bodies, their bodies young, their bodies separate, their bodies together. How far must you go back? Her womb. Her child body and his child body. Go to first hairs. To flesh, chests, arms, faces, buttocks, and stomachs. There, a wrinkle. There, color, nipples, and bellybuttons. Go to the eyes, see what she sees and what he sees. To the fingertips, which want what the eyes have made their own. Go to want, to love, to what wants more than love. Go to sins. What are your sins? Go to where the mother is not mother, the father is not father, and kiss her lips, and kiss his mouth. Do not be ashamed or afraid. The past is a strange land. Go because you can. Go because you can come back.

Those intervals between the day’s five calls to prayer the women of the house pulling thick threads through vegetables rosaries of ginger of rustling peppers in autumn drying for winter in those intervals this rug part of Grandma’s dowry folded so the Devil’s shadow would not desecrate Mecca scarlet-woven with minarets of gold but then the sunset call to prayer the servants their straw mats unrolled praying or in the garden in summer on grass the children wanting the prayers to end the women’s foreheads touching Abraham’s silk stone of sacrifice black stone descended from Heaven the pilgrims in white circling it this year my grandmother also a pilgrim in Mecca she weeps as the stone is unveiled she weeps holding on to the pillars (for Begum Zafar Ali)

O Ancient One, your web hangs down from the pines. I am of the Owl clan. I have been to water, my dress is of red clay. He moves at the edge of you, binds us with your threads. The center of his soul shall be my soul’s center. Our paths shall be white forever. Where we move the paths from every direction shall recognize each other. We are one never to be parted.

For you are like their parent who is never pleased and they are like your parent who cannot stay angry For you are like a child For age after age they conceive you and despite the pain of birth they bring you forth For they call you perfect though your hands are missing and though your heart does not beat they give you a name For they remember you For they hold you blameless in their sorrow though they were surely happiest before you arrived For your identical twin they name Silence and when they feed Silence he grows For they love Silence as they would have loved you even more perhaps as old age comes and they forget the sound of your cry and where the exact spot was they spread your ashes and how those ashes tasted when the wind blew them into their mouths Father in their dreams they worry still perhaps it is you who lives among them and not Silence after all mistakes happen after all how would anyone know and the midwives forgive them forgive them were only human

A David psalm. The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. In grass meadows He makes me lie down, by quiet waters guides me. My life He brings back. He leads me on pathways of justice for His name's sake. Though I walk in the vale of death's shadow, I fear no harm, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff— it is they that console me. You set out a table before me in the face of my foes. You moisten my head with oil, my cup overflows. Let but goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for many long days.

Thy mercy, Lord, Lord, now thy mercy show: On thee I lie; To thee I fly. Hide me, hive me, as thine own, Till these blasts be overblown, Which now do fiercely blow. To highest God I will erect my cry, Who quickly shall Dispatch this all. He shall down from heaven send From disgrace me to defend His love and verity. My soul encaged lies with lions’ brood, Villains whose hands Are fiery brands, Teeth more sharp than shaft or spear, Tongues far better edge do bear Than swords to shed my blood. As high as highest heav’n can give thee place, O Lord, ascend, And thence extend With most bright, most glorious show Over all the earth below, The sunbeams of thy face. Me to entangle every way I go Their trap and net Is ready set. Holes they dig but their own holes Pitfalls make for their own souls: So, Lord, oh, serve them so. My heart prepared, prepared is my heart To spread thy praise With tuned lays: Wake my tongue, my lute awake, Thou my harp the consort make, Myself will bear a part. Myself when first the morning shall appear, With voice and string So will thee sing: That this earthly globe, and all Treading on this earthly ball, My praising notes shall hear. For god, my only God, thy gracious love Is mounted far Above each star, Thy unchanged verity Heav’nly wings do lift as high As clouds have room to move. As high as highest heav’n can give thee place, O Lord, ascend And thence extend With most bright, most glorious show Over all the earth below, The sunbeams of thy face.

Because the only view we have is the one that looks down on the knees. Praise perspective. Praise shared disdain. Praise space made by connective tissue; the synaptic cleft; elbowroom at the dinner table; polite conversation; lies you push through your teeth. Because dissecting a dog's heart won't change the way it thinks. Praise redirected traffic. Praise the gnarled lip that defends the gentle bones. Because your mother was a seahorse. And to think of her thin is to empty all the ice from the tea glasses; to strain the soup by driving it through your hand. Praise tablecloths; sway-back chairs; the plastic folds that protect slice after slice of cheese.

One thing you know when you say it: all over the earth people are saying it with you; a child blurting it out as the seizures take her, a woman reciting it on a cot in a hospital. What if you take a cab through the Tenderloin: at a street light, a man in a wool cap, yarn unraveling across his face, knocks at the window; he says,Please. By the time you hear what he’s saying, the light changes, the cab pulls away, and you don’t go back, though you know someone just prayed to you the way you pray. Please: a word so short it could get lost in the air as it floats up to God like the feather it is, knocking and knocking, and finally falling back to earth as rain, as pellets of ice, soaking a black branch, collecting in drains, leaching into the ground, and you walk in that weather every day.