Three Prayer Poems

A Living Prayer

 

I do not kneel

or talk out loud

lifting my words, upward

my sanctimonious monologue

is a laughing loneliness

No, it's more like

reaching for a Gift

with my heart

A Wordless bending

of my full self

Like a dancer's stretch

toward a warm current of divine energy

trying to reconnect with

the Source

recharging

Sometimes it is movement, a dance

a word, a song

a visit to jail or the garden

I feel it,

like the Old Monk,

cleaning dishes, washing toilets

watch closely

the saints, the monks, the small children

and see how

to make life, itself, our prayer

  

The Rhythm of Prayer

 

beyond the wireless Babel

the assembly line of frenetic

double minded multi-tasking

the icloud storage, almost full

the race of time

accelerated by Empire

anxious and ambitious accumulation

what priceless our minutes make

our rush renders worthless

Prayer is dying to Time

living in Eternity

the glacial pace of monastic solitude

Hours stretch into a lifetime

of slow reading, and re-reading

the smell of books waiting like old friends

room enough to stretch and breathe

and leap wildly into the

rejoicing air

Where there is no Time

there is the Rhythm of Prayer

 

Freedom's Prayer

 

As I stand in Court

next to this suffering soul

awaiting judgment, I pray:

Let me feel his fear,

Let me own his suffering as mine own,

Let me hold his anxious hand,

like a my own child,

Let me take his place,

and feel the full weight

of his punishment

Let him go free, and walk

in Sunlight and Mercy

As I take his chains

upon my wrists and around my ankles

For this is my only path

to Freedom.

Scott Holmes, 2015