LITANY
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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.
