Sky curves over my flying hair
Like hallowed cathedral spires,
The light of the heavenly lamps
Touches softly between my shoulder blades
An invisible caress tugging me down
My knees beg to pray
In the muddy earth
Down, down, they say
Bending helplessly towards the prayer hall
Of the land
The grassy greens stretch long and flowery
Between two strips of concrete
Amidst car smoke and the turning of wheels
Amidst burning rubber and the whir of little engines
My knees surrender to the mighty is-ness
The song of life echoing like a prayer from
North to south to east to west
The chatter of the people is church bells
Clanging from ear to ear
As I am brought low, palms to earth
Bent over double, crouching
I cannot hold the prayer that surges from vein to vein
From cell to cell
From bone to bone
From every in-breath to out-breath
I cough out my note
I am part of the song of songs
One key or one string
Now plucked now utterly silent
And in the middle of the marketplace they
Strike me
and I sing on my knees, bleeding and dusty
for as the star is a star and a rose is a rose
as the instrument is just so, an instrument
so too the beggar is a beggar
and when he is struck, sings out in sweet pain
on his knees in the grassy altar
his pain is his song
his pain is his prayer
and the earth his prayer hall.
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