72 Prayer poems

One does not want, O Lord, to heap Up by still waters Of words a cairn But hopes to attend A small covert Of tamarisk Whose leaves salty Yet feathery Will shed light over A thickened plot. One wants at last To cede the field To tamarisk And mastic tree, To olive and stone, Stones in the fruit, Seed in the stones.

Ignorance will carry me through the last days, the blistering cities, over briny rivers swarming with jellyfish, as once my father carried me from the car up the tacked carpet to the white bed, and if I woke, I never knew it.

Beauty exists,la ermozura egziste and paradises are not artificial, yet how can one have fans of ginkgo, green right next to yellow, and human faces in the sunshine, pearls of architecture and thoughts about the dust that we become? Two days later I remember only theory, what we said concerning the mathematics of the Alhambra and the fragments of poems, so I undress quickly, to catch life red-handed, to relish the goodness of your home amid the hills encircled by a wedding party where I seek and find, seek and do not find, seek and disappear and — Translated from the Polish

lord pray pray loudly against the noise of the human hand which seeks to drown you out and appear on quiet soles so that we might understand your footsteps exert yourself in order to recognize our prayers even when they appear in a different garment because no prayer ever looses itself from the source of the one praying • lord take up the speech by which i pray to you grant me the gestures which have grown within me in your absence so that i might remain true to my uneducable nature and take your weakness upon me • lord you should always wander and never let yourself settle down because there are no longer any dwelling places only footsteps be loud and penetrating sympathize with me and my stirrings lead me all the way to your bread so that my word might wake • lord stay by me even if i nourish myself from ashes and salt be still and listen to that name which i lend to you because i want to distinguish you from the idols grant me patience to endure those who are vain with their empty words and the converts who are zealous to confirm their opposite and grant that my waiting be full of revolt • lord when you arrive we will be light bread and water the table is set and the door opened come and take your place among us free me of the belief that you are only faithful from a distance and speak with me in the unharried language of animals who from far off lie in wait for us with their unadulterated hunger

Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home: Under the shadow of thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure; Sufficient is thine arm alone, And our defense is sure. Before the hills in order stood Or earth received her frame, From everlasting thou art God, To endless years the same. Thy word commands our flesh to dust, “Return, ye sons of men”; All nations rose from earth at first, And turn to earth again. A thousand ages in thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun. The busy tribes of flesh and blood, With all their lives and cares, Are carried downwards by thy flood, And lost in following years. Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day. Like flowery fields the nations stand, Pleased with the morning light; The flowers beneath the mower’s hand Lie withering e’er ’tis night. Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Be thou our guard while troubles last, And our eternal home.

Peace be upon you— ministering angels, angels of heaven— from the King who is king of all kings, the Holy One, blessed be He; in peace be your coming— angels of peace, angels of heaven— from the King who is king of all kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. Bless me with peace— angels of peace, angels of heaven— from the King who is king of all kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, in peace be your leaving— angels of peace, angels of heaven, from the King who is king of all kings, the Holy One, blessed be He.

What god will catch me when I’m down, when I’ve taken sufficient drink to reveal myself, when my words are little more than a blurring of consonant and vowel? I’m drunk on spring: branches of waxy leaves that greet me at my driveway, a family clutching trays of sweets. How can I sing of this? If I cannot sing, then make me mute. Or lend me words, send me the taste of another’s prayer, cool as a coin newly minted on the tongue.

In the temple, a pear blackens in a statue's palm. Birds steal the grain. A man climbs the steps holding his severed hand, but no miracle occurs. His body refuses to reach out and claim what it lost. A woman in a white dress waits to be overshadowed as she plucks her eyelashes—one for the horses, one for the rain, one for the hair on the back of her lover's hands. She wants her virtue restored, to return to a morning when her skin was new and unwounded, when her mouth still fit her mother's breast. You came to ask if it's true, if angels weep until their faces become human, and if the dead can escape their tombs, then— You trap wind as it enters the statue's mouth, and command it to rise, walk.

1 Master of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake, inimitable contriver, endower of Earth so gorgeous & different from the boring Moon, thank you for such as it is my gift. I have made up a morning prayer to you containing with precision everything that most matters. ‘According to Thy will’ the thing begins. It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence. You have come to my rescue again & again in my impassable, sometimes despairing years. You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning. Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs: how can I ‘love’ you? I only as far as gratitude & awe confidently & absolutely go. I have no idea whether we live again. It doesn’t seem likely from either the scientific or the philosophical point of view but certainly all things are possible to you, and I believe as fixedly in the Resurrection-appearances to Peter & to Paul as I believe I sit in this blue chair. Only that may have been a special case to establish their initiatory faith. Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement. May I stand until death forever at attention for any your least instruction or enlightenment. I even feel sure you will assist me again, Master of insight & beauty. 2 Holy, as I suppose I dare to call you without pretending to know anything about you but infinite capacity everywhere & always & in particular certain goodness to me. Yours is the crumpling, to my sister-in-law terrifying thunder, yours the candelabra buds sticky in Spring, Christ’s mercy, the gloomy wisdom of godless Freud: yours the lost souls in ill-attended wards, those agonized thro’ the world It this instant of time, all evil men, Belsen, Omaha Beach,— incomprehensible to man your ways. May be the Devil after all exists. ‘I don’t try to reconcile anything’ said the poet at eighty, ‘This is a damned strange world.’ Man is ruining the pleasant earth & man. What at last, my Lord, will you allow? Postpone till after my children's deaths your doom if it be thy ineffable, inevitable will. I say ‘Thy kingdom come’, it means nothing to me. Hast Thou prepared astonishments for man? One sudden Coming? Many so believe. So not, without knowing anything, do I. 3 Sole watchman of the flying stars, guard me against my flicker of impulse lust: teach me to see them as sisters & daughters. Sustain my grand endeavours: husbandship & crafting. Forsake me not when my wild hours come; grant me sleep nightly, grace soften my dreams; achieve in me patience till the thing be done, a careful view of my achievement come. Make me from time to time the gift of the shoulder. When all hurt nerves whine shut away the whiskey. Empty my heart toward Thee. Let me pace without fear the common path of death. Cross am I sometimes with my little daughter: fill her eyes with tears. Forgive me, Lord. Unite my various soul, sole watchman of the wide & single stars. 4 If I say Thy name, art Thou there? It may be so. Thou art not absent-minded, as I am. I am so much so I had to give up driving. You attend, I feel, to the matters of man. Across the ages certain blessings swarm, horrors accumulate, the best men fail: Socrates, Lincoln, Christ mysterious. Who can search Thee out? except Isaiah & Pascal, who saw. I dare not ask that vision, though a piece of it at last in crisis was vouchsafèd me. I altered then for good, to become yours. Caretaker! take care, for we run in straits. Daily, by night, we walk naked to storm, some threat of wholesale loss, to ruinous fear. Gift us with long cloaks & adrenalin. Who haunt the avenues of Angkor Wat recalling all that prayer, that glory dispersed, haunt me at the corner of Fifth & Hennepin. Shield & fresh fountain! Manifester! Even mine. 5 Holy, & holy. The damned are said to say ‘We never thought we would come into this place.’ I’m fairly clear, my Friend, there’s no such place ordained for inappropriate & evil man. Surely they fall dull, & forget. We too, the more or less just, I feel fall asleep dreamless forever while the worlds hurl out. Rest may be your ultimate gift. Rest or transfiguration! come & come whenever Thou wilt. My daughter & my son fend will without me, when my work is done in Your opinion. Strengthen my widow, let her dream on me thro’ tranquil hours less & down to less. Abrupt elsewhere her heart, I sharply hope. I leave her in wise Hands. 6 Under new management, Your Majesty: Thine. I have solo’d mine since childhood, since my father’s suicide when I was twelve blew out my most bright candle faith, and look at me. I served at Mass six dawns a week from five, adoring Father Boniface & you, memorizing the Latin he explained. Mostly we worked alone. One or two women. Then my poor father frantic. Confusions & afflictions followed my days. Wives left me. Bankrupt I closed my doors. You pierced the roof twice & again. Finally you opened my eyes. My double nature fused in that point of time three weeks ago day before yesterday. Now, brooding thro’ a history of the early Church, I identify with everybody, even the heresiarchs. 7 After a Stoic, a Peripatetic, a Pythagorean, Justin Martyr studied the words of the Saviour, finding them short, precise, terrible, & full of refreshment. I am tickled to learn this. Let one day desolate Sherry, fair, thin, tall, at 29 today her life the Sahara Desert, who has never once enjoyed a significant relation, so find His lightning words. A Prayer for the Self Who am I worthless that You spent such pains and take may pains again? I do not understand; but I believe. Jonquils respond with wit to the teasing breeze. Induct me down my secrets. Stiffen this heart to stand their horrifying cries, O cushion the first the second shocks, will to a halt in mid-air there demons who would be at me. May fade before, sweet morning on sweet morning, I wake my dreams, my fan-mail go astray, and do me little goods I have not thought of, ingenious & beneficial Father. Ease in their passing my beloved friends, all others too I have cared for in a travelling life, anyone anywhere indeed. Lift up sober toward truth a scared self-estimate. 9 Surprise me on some ordinary day with a blessing gratuitous. Even I’ve done good beyond their expectations. What count we then upon Your bounty? Interminable: an old theologian asserts that even to say You exist is misleading. Uh-huh. I buy that Second-century fellow. I press his withered glorifying hand. You certainly do not as I exist, impersonating as well the meteorite & flaring in your sun your waterfall or blind in caves pallid fishes. Bear in mind me, Who have forgotten nothing, & Who continues. I may not foreknow & fail much to remember. You sustain imperial desuetudes, at the kerb a widow. 10 Fearful I peer upon the mountain path where once Your shadow passed, Limner of the clouds up their phantastic guesses. I am afraid, I never until now confessed. I fell back in love with you, Father, for two reasons: You were good to me, & a delicious author, rational & passionate. Come on me again, as twice you came to Azarias & Misael. President of the brethren, our mild assemblies inspire, & bother the priest not to be dull; keep us week-long in order; love my children, my mother far & ill, far brother, my spouse. Oil all my turbulence as at Thy dictation I sweat out my wayward works. Father Hopkins said the only true literary critic is Christ. Let me lie down exhausted, content with that. 11 Germanicus leapt upon the wild lion in Smyrna, wishing to pass quickly from a lawless life. The crowd shook the stadium. The proconsul marvelled. ‘Eighty & six years have I been his servant, and he has done me no harm. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?’ Polycarp, John’s pupil, facing the fire. Make too me acceptable at the end of time in my degree, which then Thou wilt award. Cancer, senility, mania, I pray I may be ready with my witness.

1. Two Gods: the one in the closet and the one from school days and both are not mine. I opened the door on God at dusk and closed him the rest of the day. He perched on the ledge above my father's shirts and wool suits, a mandir in every Hindu house, ours smelling of starch, surrounded by ties and old suitcases. I was the ghost at school, sat on the pew and watched as other girls held God under their tongues. My lips remember the prayer my parents taught me those evenings with their bedroom closet open—Ganesh carved in metal, Krishna blue in a frame. I don't remember the translation, never sure I really knew it. I got mixed up sometimes, said a section of the "Our Father" in the middle of the arti, ending in Amen when I meant Krishna, Krishna,