Daily Poem

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our debts
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory forever.
Amen.

Charge our stiff backs with power
to roll into the morning.
As we squint over the rims of our coffee
let our eyes see blessing in the quivers
of the leaves outside the window,
dappling the table with spatters
of the sun that rose too soon for our taste.
Let us want nothing more than
the feel of your goodness gliding over
our dry hands as we check our e-mail,
the light slide of the Spirit
like a finger along our jaws
directing our heads to turn
and putting love into our hands
so that we smile and tell people hello
and give our spare quarters
so others can use the vending machines.
As we walk out to the parking lot
listing chores, call us to lift our eyes
to trace the boiling summer clouds
shaped like clay in your hands.
Put a song between our teeth and our tongues
like bread from the beaks of ravens
that we may taste praise
not of our making in our own mouths.
Teach us to feel above the contortions
in our guts when our coworkers
call us “you people,” when our families
forget to phone, when the feral yellow cat
kicks over the tomato plants for the twentieth time,
for we know we have said “you people,”
we have refrained from words of comfort,
and we have kicked the staring ribs of strays.
Let us take the stones we so readily gather
into our hands, and use them to line gardens.
Let us break no skulls or windows,
raise no welts on our own skin or others’.
Let us step upon the ruins of old orchard walls
on our walks, and breathe apple-tinged air in the evening.
For we know, O Lord, that today is a jar
of dark moving water
and when we hold back to watch you stir it
the pattern of light on the surface
will run sharp red over the backs of our knuckles
when we dip our hands
to draw forth wine under your watching.
Teach us, then, when we drag ourselves
under covers and muffle the light,
to close our eyes. Teach us to sink backward
into dark moving water, to stretch
toward your hands and to open our mouths.
Teach us to cry out, Amen.