Grace

When the young professor folded
his hands at dinner and spoke to God
about my safe arrival
through the snow, thanking Him also
for the food we were about to eat,
it was in the tone of voice I use
to speak to friends when I call
and get their answering machines,
chatting about this and that
in a casual voice,
picturing them listening
but too busy to pick up the phone,
or out taking care of important
business somewhere else.
The next day, flying home
through a windy
and overwhelming sky, I knew
I envied his rapport with God
and hoped his prayers
would keep my plane aloft.

Linda Pastan

Deceiving the Gods

The old Jews rarely admitted good fortune.
And if they did, they'd quickly add kinahora—
let the evil eye not hear. What dummkopf
would think the spirits were on our side?
But even in a tropical paradise
laden with sugarcane and coconut,
something like the shtetl's wariness exists.
In Hawaii, I'm told, a fisherman
never spoke directly, lest the gods
arrive at the sea before him.
Instead he'd look to the sky,
the fast-moving clouds, and say,
I wonder if leaves are falling in the uplands!
Let us go and gather leaves.
So, my love, today let's not talk at all.
Let's be like those couples
eating silently in restaurants,
barely a word the entire meal.
We pitied them, but now I see
they were always so much smarter than we were.

Ellen Bass

On Prayer

Then a priestess said, "Speak to us of Prayer."

And he answered, saying:

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?

And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.

And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.

When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.

For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive.

And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:

Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.

It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

I cannot teach you how to pray in words.

God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.

And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.

But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,

And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,

"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.

It is thy desire in us that desireth.

It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.

We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."



Khalil Gibran

Sometimes it feels like
no matter what I do
I'm always faced with a brick wall
standing in front of me.
His feet are firm and hard
and he has no family
so all he has to do is spend time
with whomever gives him a chance.

I didn't want to but everywhere I turned,
he found a way to slip by and settle.
I tried to move him,
lose him,
but every decision I made,
he seemed to anticipate
and the fleeting moments of
being content and happy
made no sense
when I saw the tell-tale rubble skirting my ankles.

I ended up adopting him,
naming him Disappointment
and he knew what he was,
my stillborn follower.
He still makes me try, you know,
to break free,
to have goals that reach high above the sky and beyond,
even though his massive presence blocks out the sunlight.
I suppose I can only keep trying,
keep failing,
keep hoping,
keep dreaming.

One day it will all be okay.