Evening Prayer

 

I rediscovered an old, well-loved friend today. 

It's really strange to stumble on an old poem written when I was particularly inflamed with an insatiable desire to write poem after poem. It's surprising that the poem doesn't now ring as naive or dull or embarrassing. Some do; this one doesn't. 

Evening Prayer

2007

And so I pray

to somehow learn to cope someday

with that ever aching flower caught

so that pain sinks away with every distraught pose

in quiet reverent thought

as the gently shining oil stains

in those old gravel service lanes

reflect the risen crimson rose.

And so I pray

to fall and bend and break

as the clouds shift in colors bright

-feel that tinge of orange that flows

in humble glowing light

and as they swiftly fade and pass

my flesh, I know, is merely grass

yet that I may be the patch that grows. 

_______________________________

Is it naive? Is it flawed? I don't know. But I know that it makes me feel echoey and light, breathless and pensive. It's so surprising that it still makes me feel raw and tender and fills me with something like awe and quiet reverence. I love that the poem does that to me even now, and from here, after coming along all this way (18 years), and perhaps, in some ways, remaining in the exact same place.

Have you ever stumbled on work from long ago- some artwork or writing that still surprises you today? 

Sincerely,

Natasha