Sean Sexton: Plea
An evening has passed, and a young cow is still
crying among the herd this morning like the widow
in the Bible who wouldn’t leave an ill-tempered
judge alone.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: What I Know of Love When Times Are Dark
And if you don’t
know how to pray,
then perhaps you are doing it right.
“Walking in Beauty”: Closing Prayer from the Navajo Blessing Way Ceremony
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
Robert Cording: An Unasked for Inauguration Prayer, 2025
Lord of the light that reveals
how we have failed and failed again
the one requirement asked of us—
to love one another.
Adam Bittleston: September
Into the ripening
Of earth’s great gifts
The mists of autumn
Begin to be woven.
Ernesto Cardenal: Prayer for Marilyn Monroe
Lord,
welcome this girl known throughout the world as Marilyn Monroe,
although that was not her real name
Yehoshua November: Driving Back to College in a Storm
And as I entered the onramp and the highway curved,
I realized I’d forgotten the wayfarer’s prayer.
Michael Simms: Against Prayer
Okay,
God of crib death
and dirty needles,
of heroin and fentanyl,
God of twisted steel
burning beside the road
Tashi Nyima: Gratitude
With gratitude, I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, whose joyful exertion blesses my life each day.
Linda Parsons: Two Poems
I’m not a healer, though maybe
I am—my ordinary hands laid on the scathing past
to cool its sear, my palms a bowl cupping
the last drop of day in blind descent.
Chelsea Cleveland: Loneliness as Fermentation
Just as foods undergo significant changes, evolving into something more intricate and nuanced, we, too, experience compelling transformations in our lives.
Elizabeth Romero: Prayer
Heavenly Father
Who looks down on us
With all our confusions
Charles Davidson: The Road from Eden
The secret is in the vigil of watching and listening…
Arlene Weiner: While I live
While I live, let me pour as through a sieve
the mixed and muddied waters of my loves,
hold the gold and let the silt go.
