LITANY

here is the eastern bluebird, a prayer on wings. & here are windows to look through, glass gleaming & intact. here is hot water to bathe in beside running-water prayer & drinking-water prayer & prayer for scrubbing your hands & wound washing prayer. here is myself praying under the moon in tatters, saying my tattered prayer which is more broken than my broken arabic prayer which i hear in my mind, followed by the end of november prayer which leads right into the december prayer. all this time we have been marching & now we are here in march may july & somewhere is the lonesome prayer for the anniversary of my friend’s death. glad my friend won’t see the so-called war. take my best prayer against invasion & amputation. have this childbirth prayer to counter siege & surveillance. look, this is how to make an incubation prayer & a body properly buried prayer. a rescued prayer. a prayer to haul concrete & wipe the ash from the face. here’s a prayer for laughter, not slaughter. here’s a prayer to soothe the burning trees & a prayer to stay those who set fire to the grove. oh, ancient field prayer. eight centuries here prayer. prayer for the toddler’s eyelashes & her grandfather’s thumbs. kissing your eyes prayer, crossing my heart prayer. prayer for warm hands & clean socks. fresh bread prayer, prayer for the baker’s knuckles, the ‘oud player’s reesha, the singer’s tongue. call in the adhan. write a chalkboard prayer for the rose bush & for every book. for the childless & now childless. baby prayer in the downy voices of children. grown prayer in the rivered voices of men. wailing prayer & trembling prayer & prayer that weeps & prayer that storms & whispers & rhymes & prayer that smuggles & lies & jokes & prayer that keeps for one hundred years in oil & salt, prayer in the eye of our rage & our sun, prayer that names & welcomes & protects, field this prayer century.