Inner Cessationary Prayers
You can keep your prayers.
With their cadence, like a white noise,
Covering any sound that might disturb the complacent quiet
Of our spiritual sleep; to keep us from hearing
The hollow voice of holy windstorms, asking why we’re standing still,
Or expecting angels to stir the slow flowing of our will to move,
sitting beside the Sunday surface of the same pool
week after week, and waiting be carried in and out.
But it’s up to us to help each other pick up our cots and walk;
How can we see our neighbor with our head bowed and our eyes closed?
How can the fingers of folded hands weave together the separate threads
Of sorrow and comfort side by side, to bind a heart unravelling?
Our prayers ought to stain our shirts, ruin our church clothes,
Scuff our good shoes.
They ought to taste earthy on our lips, like carrots pulled straight from the ground,
As if we were too hungry for them to wash them well.
