Prayer

Prayer

They taught me to pray - "Pray for anything," they said -
"Prayers are always answered. Always.
Just remember this: Sometimes, the answer's 'No.'" 
What, then, the difference - whether I pray
To God the Father, or just ask Dad? Is God 
That parent a child runs to, full of hope, 
When the other has said "No!"? Is God
The stern and angry Wizard of Oz, 
Admonishing innocents for wasting His time? Is God
The permissive pony-giver, 
Carrying sweet butterscotch in a lint-filled pocket 
Full of love, yet fuzzy 
With inevitable disappointment?

They taught me to pray for others - 
"God bless..." The litany of names went on 
Till eyelids sagged 
Beneath the gravity and weight of them.
Was there really strength in numbers? How many times
Must God be reminded of Aunt Bonny's cancer;
Or Great-Grandma's aching joints;
Or Billy's third son's failing business
(He's a wastrel, but he has a good heart);
Or Mom's failing memory (Dad's asked her umpteen times
To take the car in for its oil change).

Would my prayer be more effective
If I collected prayer-cards 
With signatures from the neighbors?
The didn't work so well with Dad, 
When what I wanted was a puppy.

Matthew says we ought to pray in secret - "Your Father knows
What you need before you ask Him." Matthew says
We shouldn't "heap up empty phrases" thinking we'll be heard
For endless words. Even as I child 
I heard such things and rolled my eyes: 
Two hours in church, and I felt empathy with God. 
But if a prayer falls in a closet
And there's no one around to hear it
Does it even make a noise (in Heaven)?

Is God suffering an eternity's forgetfulness
Like Great-Grandpa - wandering inattentive - 
Distracted by a billion other short and simple words
That we be told we must repeat our prayers
Ad nauseum? Must we demand God hear our pleas 
A hundred thousand times a hundred?
Or will a heart-felt thanks 
Expressed in secret silence
For His small and wonderous surprises, 
Be enough?

Today’s Poet

Dan Pagis

– an Israeli poet, born in Romania. A Holocaust survivor who spent much of his childhood in concentration camps. Read more here. Questions posed in the following lesson plans invite us to think more deeply on poetry – specifically, Pagis’s, but we can consider them a guide to thinking about other poems in the context of human experience, as well.

Dan Pagis’ Poetry (yadvashem.org)

April is National Poetry Month. This year marks its 27th year. NaPoWriMo – 30 days of writing poems – is poets’ answer to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

This coincides with the A to Z Blogging Challenge, now celebrating its 13th anniversary. Some participants choose a theme; others wing it. Doesn’t matter! The real challenge is to build a practice of writing daily. I think I stuck with it…once. You can see the list of participants – I’m sure they’d love it if you’d visit and comment on their blogs.

This month, my goal is to:

1. Write a poem a day and share it – uncurated – here; and
2. Highlight some poets you may be unfamiliar with.

I encourage you to click the links to read about them and their work. I plan to choose a diverse array of classical and contemporary poets – indigenous poets, Black poets, women poets, LGBTQ poets – that challenge us to see the world differently while also tapping into universal themes and emotions.

Remember, too, that comments and conversation are always welcome here. (Spammers, on the other hand, will be tossed into the moat or mocked, so before you leave an irrelevant comment or drop a link, consider that it’s fair game!)