Christian Wiman (b. 1966)
Prayer
For all
the pain
passed down
the genes
or latent
in the very grain
of being;
for the lordless
mornings,
the smear
of spirit
words intuit
and inter;
for all
the nightfall
neverness
inking
into me
even now,
my prayer
is that a mind
blurred
by anxiety
or despair
might find
here
a trace
of peace.
From Once in the West: Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2014)
Dan Clendenin: dan@journeywithjesus.net