Deborah Bogen: Preface

Drape prayer flags over every school bus. And every hospital balcony. Fly them from the steeples of churches, wrap the mosques and temples too. Decorate the dictators’ palaces with prayer flags. Send prayer flags to the generals in charge of the secret detention centers. I mean the ones in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. And the ones in Egypt and El Salvador too. Bind the wounds of the demonstrators with prayer flags. Make prayer flag tents for the homeless. Swaddle the shivering refugees in prayer flags — then set the prayer flags free.

Let them catch on the barbed wire that tops our prison walls. Watch them litter the exercise yard with love. And when the teenager stands in a silent house, so undone, so alone that he puts the gun in his mouth, may prayer flags fall from the rafters, surprising him. Making him laugh.

—

Copyright 2015 Deborah Bogen