Prayer by Carolyn Forché - NPM4

Begin again among the poorest, moments off, in another time and place. 

Belongings gathered in the last hour, visible invisible: 

Tin spoon, teacup, tremble of tray, carpet hanging from sorrow’s balcony. 

Say goodbye to everything. With a wave of your hand, gesture to all you have known.

Begin with bread torn from bread, beans given to the hungriest, a carcass of flies. 

Take the polished stillness from a locked church, prayer notes left between stones.

Answer them and hoist in your net voices from the troubled hours. 

Sleep only when the least among them sleeps, and then only until the birds. 

Make the flatbed truck your time and place. Make the least daily wage your value.

Language will rise then like language from the mouth of a still river. No one’s mouth.

Bring night to your imaginings. Bring the darkest passage of your holy book.

Forché, Carolyn. "Prayer" Blue Hour. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003. 21.