Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

Ten years ago, I began reciting a daily poem to myself as a form of devotion. I was tired of living thoughtlessly or pinging from one urgent matter to the next; morning recitations centered the rest of my day. They made me more aware of how I communicate to others and how I behave… well, most of the time. Given our capacity to harm and the world’s capacity to violence, reading poems out loud helps me to co-create an existence where a peaceable kingdom is achievable on earth.

For me, the power of poetry and the power of secular prayer are interchangeable. I am channeled in my belief that something greater looms and that I am capable of interacting with it. I am pushed past my paltry ego. The poem serves as an intermediary where I speak into a threshold of silence that separates me from the divine. In the hands of mystic poets, reading a poem sometimes sounds like an urgent entreaty or plea to the unknown.

Throughout the day, words and phrases float to me, as I am crossing a street or entering an elevator or lifting a head of lettuce to inspect in a grocery store. The poem primes my mind to enjoy the world around me and to see with great clarity.

Then, there are those days I am brought to my knees. I seek out the consolation artful words grant. I long for the revelations that are sometimes evident in a quotable line or am humbled by the grace and perspective verse provides. Poetry is my armor.

Today’s poem follows a long tradition of devotional poetry. In such poems, often a speaker asks for intervention, relief, and renewal. It is a human call out into the empty immensity of the universe. It is one of the things we do during quiet acts of meditation. We ask for help in dealing with our human cares. We ask to have our fears dissolved, to be shown a way, to break open into a new reality.

Prayer
by Philip Metres

Wither me to within me:
Welt me to weal me common again:
Withdraw to wear me weary:
Over me to hover and lover again:

Before me to form and perform me: 
Round me to rill me liquid incisions:
Behind me to hunt and haunt me:
Down me to drown indecision:

Bury me to seed me: bloom me
In loam me: grind me to meal me
Knead me to rise: raise me to your mouth

Rive me to river me:
End me to unmend me:
Rend me to render me:

"Prayer" by Philip Metres. Used by permission of the poet.