Let US Pray Feature

 

 

Catherine McGuire, US   Free Verse Backyard Prayer   The golden poppies, still shut, point like candle flames to the morning sky; like a row of votives, a garden shrine softly glowing in early shade. Sunflowers preside on the altar of this day. The fumbled prayers of water and seed join with six-legged acolytes in silent adulation. Give us this day, especially the morning. Let us feed on this quiet green mystery that we grow in wisdom and humility.     Sunday Matins   The ground is dewed by night’s somber condensation; blond grass tufts breaking left and right like waves in a choppy sea. The shift of social clocks moves this dawn toward mid-morning, but the birds and I know. I lay the garden tools along the bed with reverential silence. A whir behind tells me a tiny worshipper has come to my font. River is choir in a rushing stillness, and earth the sacrifice and vessel both. I have graduated from the rooms of bells and incense; whose window sagas stain out the sky and trees, though Light Almighty penetrates as it does all things. Bell-birds toll for me, their descending note like breathing out, like the night being buried at dawn. What is sacred to me is the Mystery: I turn the earth, I know the seeds I place in damp graves, I know the powders sprinkled like incense. But I am no initiate to their bloom. These green leaves, just breaking into light, are celebrants of a Rite that makes me breathless when I pause, as I do on Sabbath, to attend. But perhaps I know something: my breath and heart echo some deep Amen; I feel an inner thrumming, a rushing stillness. Amen.     About Catherine McGuire   Catherine McGuire is a writer and artist with a deep interest in philosophy, the big “Why we are here?” questions. She has had more than 160 poems published, including on a bus for the nationally-known Poetry In Motion project, and has a chapbook, Joy Into Stillness: Seasons of Lake Quinault. She lives in Sweet Home, Oregon with her chickens and large garden.  Catherine's web site: www.cathymcguire.com This is Catherine McGuire's first appearance in Sketchbook.