More on: prayer

Amazing how the prayers come back, ———the cues to stand and kneel and sit, the hymns rising after so many years into the air of this small old church. ———We lean together in summer sunlight as the priest wafts past in an incense cloud and the small choir ———sings off-key in corner light. Yesterday you…

like a slap, like a bone, like a spice, like a thought gone still in the light, another kind of sorrow, a kind of life, a cheek stroked, then freckled. Its rhythm amounts to injury, to a small space. No singing. Just a sack of air, a soiled shirt, more sermonizing that picks away at…

However innocent your life may have been, no Christian ought to venture to die in any other state than that of the penitent. —————————————————–—Saint Augustine I have been sodden with wine. I have been confused by wine. I have been lied to by men, And yet, I lie down upon such men, Still and willing…

I. In unvarnished foreground, a cat offers his paw in a dingy splint to children who bend over it, one in a red, zipped-up jacket so the whole scene is drawn away from the fields, the church where someone’s arranging flowers in deep, dented vases (we can’t see any of this but her parked car,…

Thus this restless little butterfly of the memory has its wings burned now and cannot fly. —Teresa of Avila Char my wings. Lord, singe these cells of forewing, hindwing. Blacken memory’s sky blue shimmer, its thousands of cells— each startling pigment, each dorsal and ventral venation— the coppered glint of flight, oh Lord. If prayer…

for E.J.K. I used to light candles for you (after your death had been catalogued in the secret book) in every cathedral I passed, most in small public squares. Cold stone, incense, the tall silence, the hush and seal of the door at the threshold. Though not a Catholic, I made the sign of the…

Lord, let your face be lined. Lord, let your hair be gray with patience. Holy Father, let your cheeks be silver with long growth as you put up with me and put up with me. Lord, let your face be a blazon of parts in which I can name you sufficient to be seen in…

Then, the Lord heard me in the wilderness of my soul. Then, the lost place of me became clear. Then, I recognized distraction for what it is. Then, I was freed from the desert of diversion. Then, I was moved to the green oasis within me. Then, the still voice of the Lord was as…

Mussoorie, India Lying on the bed below you, I never managed to ask you to pray for us, or to see you weep the blood you’re famous for. I just loved to stare— and you didn’t seem to mind— at your barely blushing cheekbones, lit by the angel’s glow. You warmed me with your incandescent…

I SOMETIMES CARRY a rosary these days, a Spanish one of wooden beads that a friend gave to me. I used to think that it reflected the same impulse as needlework, which I do inexpertly—a desire for the consolation of repetition. Now I consider it a spiritual discipline, as I try, in middle age, to…