NaPoWriMo - day twelve

trust

so much anger beneath the surface, and not beneath it. so much

subterfuge. you just keep digging in and digging down.

don't keep pretending. don’t. be honest about your fear.

instead, you just keep pushing. so sure. so afraid. so against.

i have something to give you - a charm to protect you.

will you wear it? will it find a home around your neck?

next to your heart? in your pocket?

or will it be hidden away in a box

on the top shelf of your closet or under your bed?

we all need someone we can trust, who will hold us

in prayer, in remembrances, in the palm of their hand.

recognize this thought will elicit laughter. recognize this

will give rise to mocking. perhaps even anger.

there is a king on a mountain.

there are expectations. the failure to be plain

shall incur his wrath. speak to the lies you have gathered up.

declare to those who would enchain you

i will not be chained.

the king would like you to be their son, or their daughter.

there are nations waiting for you. there’s a throne with your name on it.

so be wise. you may yet be a king. so rejoice.

greet those you love with a holy kiss.

keep anger and judgement far from you.

there is so little asked. and so much.

Prayer by Jorie Graham - NPM12

Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl
themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the
way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-
                                                   infolding,
entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a
visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by
minutest fractions the water's downdrafts and upswirls, the
dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where
they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into
itself (it has those layers) a real current though mostly
invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing
                                  motion that forces change--
this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody gets
what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing
is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by
each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself,
also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something
at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through
in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is
what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen
now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only
something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go.
I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never.
It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.

Graham, Jorie. "Prayer". Essential Pleasures. Pinsky, Robert, Ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. 361.