November 6, 2012

A Prayer for Words

I've been remiss in my recent commitment to posting. Steeped literally and emotionally within the deep canyons of Zion for the past two weeks. I usually journal during the trip and just couldn't until two days ago and it's been something of a flood.

Looking for words to help clarify what I feel, I just happened to turn to one of my favorite authors, novelist and poet, N. Scott Momaday. In his short book, "In the Bear's House" there is a poem, "Prayer for Words" which I share here:

Here is the wind bending the reeds westward,
The patchwork of morning on gray moraine

Had I words I could tell of origin,
Of God's hands bloody with birth at first light,
Of my thin squeals in the heat of his breath,
Of the taste of being, the bitterness,
And scents of camasroot and chokecherries.

And, God, if my mute heart expresses me,
I am the rolling thunder and the bursts
Of torrents upon rock, the whispering
Of old leaves, the silence of deep canyons.
I am the rattle of mortality.

I could tell of the splintered sun. I could
Articulate the night sky, had I words.