Pray

by Patrick T. Reardon

 

--- ONE ---

 

Pray for us, wrong turns and potholes,

wildernesses, arbors, and roiled rivers.

 

Pray for us, Our Lady of Souls.

Pray for us, you, empty vessels and mute cymbals.

 

Echoes in dark,

pray for us, weak as we are.

 

Lady Cosmos, pray.

Timeless atom, pray.

Rotted wood.

 

Pray us trust.

Pray us faith, shadowed alley.

Pray us strength, isolate prairie tree.

Pray us father, son and spirit, footfall.

 

Rusted auto abandoned, pray.

Rusted crucifixes, pray.

Rusted shovel, pray.

Rusted furnace.

 

Pray for us, grassy knoll.

Pray for us, you, broken crutch and scorched milk,

shoe polish, Hosanna seed and neatsfoot oil.

 

Pray “Caution Falling Ice.”

Pray “How to throw bricks.”

Pray “Hose connection.”

Pray “In God we trust.”

Pray “No parking anytime.”

 

Pray for us, soft steel.

 

Pray for us, fall-of-snow stillness.

Pray for us, now and again.

Let your prayers rise Lady Universe,

the incense of galaxies,

of black holes, of tick and tock.

 

Knife slice skin,

pray for us, numberless and miseried.

 

Pray blank paper.

Pray blue number tattoo.

Pray ignorant ocean.

Pray for us, you, stones and boulders,

jittering leaves, straight-line shadow and hot manure.

 

Bleak formlessness.

Thin humidity.

Blackened brick.

Tracked snow.

All that is hard and soft.

Wide horizon and canopy of heavens.

 

Beseech your Lady pray for us.

Plead your Lady.

 

Pray for us, Our Lady of Souls.

Pray for us, you, ashes and sands and black soils.

 

Mourning fields, pray for us.

Abattoir sewer, pray for us.

You, asteroid tails, give us prayers.

 

Let your prayers,

you, mountain face, water us.

Let you, stalagmite, pray for us,

and worn leather and ore slag, the whirl wind.

 

We entreat your prayers, Lady Creation.

We beseech in breathing and breathlessness.

We plead, you, minerals and geyser spouts.

Pray us, at nerve ends, hope.

 

Pray us, you, dust to dust.

 

…

 

 

--- TWO ---

 

My covenant with you,

with every living creature,

birds and animals, tame and wild,

fish.

 

My covenant with you,

never again destruction

by the waters of flood.

 

My covenant with you,

the arc of colors across the sky.

forever ages to come,

after clouds,

sunlight on water.

 

My covenant with you,

mother heartbeat,

fluid and waters,

ocean waters of Baptism.

 

My covenant with you,

relics lost in midden mounds,

broken oil vessels,

electric storm clarity.

 

My covenant with you,

dark sanctuary,

prostrate on marble, tonsured.

 

My covenant with you,

suffering breathing.

 

My covenant with you,

Huns at large,

bland Nazi memos,

slave blood on weather-grayed wood.

 

My covenant with you,

nature and nurture and will,

and the greatest of these is will,

the fog of selection.

 

My covenant with you,

spirit on waters,

deep monsters and monstrosities,

silence.

 

My covenant with you,

first step,

second step,

last step.

 

My covenant with you,

dazzlement, transfigurement,

delight, puzzlement.

 

My covenant with you,

ashes and boils,

toil, sweat and wonder.

 

My covenant with you,

song of sinner.

 

My covenant with you,

gold, stained-glass, soaring space,

beeswax and rubrics, incense,

pungent prayer

 

....

 

 

--- THREE ---

 

I was tempted to ignore my dust future.

 

I was tempted to vow.

 

Offered alms, I was tempted.

 

I was tempted to make a pass,

take a pass,

walk past,

pass over,

pass up the chance.

 

I was tempted to listen to the siren yowl

and orders for the taking.

 

I was tempted to run away to Disneyland.

 

I ate stones when tempted.

 

I was tempted to pluck out my eyes,

to sever my glands, to self-leper.

 

The empty room tempted me,

the parapet, the crowd of angels,

suburban snow-rain.

 

White gloves and a large-jewel ring

were my temptation,

the red cassock.

 

I was tempted

to pack up all my longings and forgiveness.

 

I was tempted to surrender

to the Whore of Bargain Basement,

to the Bishop of Phone,

to the King of Fears,

to America the Dutiful,

to the Garden of Heathens,

to Forever Young.

 

Who whispered freedom in my ear

tempted me.

 

Who looked in my eyes

tempted me.

 

Who bassinet-strapped me

tempted me.

 

I was tempted

to rock the boat until it sank.

 

My animal spirits tempted me.

 

The bully tempted me to feeling.

 

The pastor told me to avoid temptation

by picturing a naked woman defecating.

 

Temptation was my recompense.

 

Body and soul, I was tempted.

 

I was tempted to hope.

 

I was tempted by faith.

 

I was tempted to incandescence,

to phosphorescence,

to obsolescence,

to acquiescence,

to frankincense.

 

Atop the mountain, I was tempted.

 

In the ocean trench, I was tempted.

 

I was tempted

by the blank formless white.

 

I was tempted

by the melting crayon colors.

 

I tempted myself.

 

……….