And what about the prayers?
Published by The Dewdrop, February 2024
1.
Sometimes I think of the prayers that were said for me
worry worked out from beads of caress-smoothed cedar
psalms and supplications said on my confirmation day
even though I felt like a fraud for my hot and itchy heart
prayers for blessing and safe passage and health and oh –
nothing specific, just divine protection (you know the stuff)
and later the prayers of middle-night, sleepless petitions to
get me out of a marriage or unwind from addictions, those
dark velvet tongue-fuzzing wild and winding prayers that
later crossed oceans to find Siddhartha and shining Shinto
shrines (spirits always watching) and new prayers for safe
delivery, for life on life, those answered and em-bodied prayers
later sticking stubby toddler hands in the ancestor incense ash
before I can reach them: a quick lick of holy in their hot and
prayerless world.
2.
When I introduced my three-year-old to the felty Baby Jesus
in the nativity scene, she grabbed him and said:
‘Come with me Babyccinno, I’ll take care of you’
and I wondered whether we should get busy finding
her some blessed bodyguards other than this god of
Milk and Froth she was fist-clenching the life out of
but not knowing where to begin, with all the:
sacred screens and see-to-believes
and meditations-for-one, of micro-dosing and
pendulum-dousing of ice breathing and crystals
bathing in moonlight for protection, from mercury
retrograding the shit out of everything – again!
Then again, aren’t we lucky that we don’t have to sit
in wooden pews and smell flagstone damp and coffee-breath
on hymns and listen to the lists of our wrongs and wranglings
rather – we can declare hand on heart:
‘You know, I’d say I’m not religious, I’m spiritual’
And be greeted by an interested nod, or:
‘The universe has my back!’
(Jesus, whatever you do, don’t mention God)
But will they feel lost, my daughters, without
that Big Man in the sky or
that Smaller Man under the tree
(hey, it’s not me, we grew up with the He’s)
and what about the prayers?
3.
I guess I could say: I carry them in my heart all day.
It might be a cliché, but to lug another two hearts around as
well as your own verges on the Biblical. I guess I could say
I micro-dose prayers to them at night, my hand stroking
hot foreheads, my song hidden inside the song
My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean: Oh God, So Much Could Go Wrong
I guess the worry woven into my old bones is my
breast-beating, begging he/him/she/her/they/theirs
to protect them from It All. I could say that I hunger
for the holy, or for redemption lying in the morning grass
or for confession in my fading flesh, I guess in this
earth-deep itch sprinting through my cells something
must start to stick? I guess I can show them how the sky
and the trees can shake the shame from their skin, how the
light shining behind their eyes is the place to begin, I guess
what I’m saying is:
could (you) protect them without my prayers?
nothing to unmake them, no end that’s an end
if this counts? if (you) hear me? if (you’re) there?
(Amen)
An extra note
This is a long one, so thanks for getting this far!
This poem is inspired by my ongoing hunt for the holy in an increasingly secular world. My parents’ generation, and to a greater degree their parents generation, grew up in communities that were united by faith. Growing up in a liberal-Christian household, I know (with hindsight) that my siblings and I were prayed for when we were growing up, in the same way that my husband, who grew up in Japan, was prayed for in the Shinto/Buddhist traditions. In both cases, there was a point of faith, an understanding of some larger, benevolent power at play and a sense of being protected by these divine pleas through all the twists and turns of life.
Recently I found myself wondering ‘who will pray for my daughters?’ If I don’t pray with any regularity or fervour, does ‘anyone’ still hear me? The idea of this poem is that it turns from a meditation on religion into a prayer without the narrator quite realising that is what has happened. It asks the question, is love enough of a prayer? Or worry? Is simply wanting holiness to infuse your life a prayer? For me, having children has cracked open my heart to such a degree that somehow I feel like I am praying for them all the time with my whole body - without even realising that’s what I’m doing.
It’s important to note that I’m not saying that organised religion is the answer, nor am I condemning it! And if you want to blame mercury retrograding for the f*’d-upness in the world, by all means - go ahead. Instead, I see this as more of a wondering and pondering piece - how can we maintain a sense of conviction in ‘something more’ that makes sense to the world we live in today? How can we ensure that our spirituality doesn’t become individualistic, show-y or used as a tool for the ego to elevate itself, and take it instead to a place where community and activism - and love - lie at its heart?
If anyone has the answers to these questions, please let me know :)