Prayer for my Father (August 6th, 2006)

Prayer for my Father
August 6th, 2006


God, this is a prayer for my father

on his birthday, among the lights rising out of the lake

backdrafting this little house. The water runs off.

This prayer is for the water running off the roof and eaves.

The water on my mother and father, a box of water.

This is a prayer for his good eye.

For a pattern of clouds.

For the eggs of my father.

For the milk and cheese of my father.

For the birds of my father's complaining:

awww & awwww among the mud buoys,

the birds fishing at dawn, at dusk the figures

moving in and out a lantern. Dimming day:

this memory of my father on a hammock at dusk.


****


This is a prayer for my father's snow.

Snow among us in this basket going up, up.

This picture of us against a clouds’ pattern:

mountain of peace, his face burning with snow.

This is a prayer fifteen below and he is running us into the trees.

He is running us down the mountain to sleep.

He is getting us up and running us down the mountain.

My father, my wheel, my crank

I'm praying, I'm praying in the silence of snow,

in years of drifts against a little house. We are all full.


****


My father is slicing tomatoes and eating tomatoes.

This is a dream. He is eating mulberries and biscuits.

He is rowing a boat. He is swimming inside fort gordon.

It is bright blue moving all over the glass walls.

It smells like wet silk. And during the long drive home,

his sailboat sinks. During the long drive home we become born

on my father's back, born inside his ears,

we are a cargo of stupid birds, singing out and crying

on the long drive back, riding with him on

the long drive, riding my father's prayer

of silence, his prayer of peace, his boat asleep

on the lake, the sound of the moon.


****


I am praying for my father's peaceful expression,

on a white hammock a dusk.

I am making a prayer that is white like his legs,

that is long and scratched. I am asking that this prayer be

floating like my father and rowing like my father,

like my father and mother, like their daughters and sons.

This is a prayer for his children

asleep on the skylights, his children in the back seat asleep,

his children sleeping fast on cots, on chairs

pushed together, inside of drawers, on the backs of boats

they are sleeping, they are sleeping under the bed

and on top of the stairs his children are swimming in sleep, soaking.

I am praying for Morgan.

I am praying for Whit.

I am praying for Laine.

I am praying for Reagan.

I am praying for Katie.

I am praying for my father, my father Lord.

My nimbus father, my hairy father.

My father's arms straight, knees bent.


****


The voice of my father underneath a scarf.

The voice of my father inside a lake.

The voice of my father on the phone.

The voice of my father farther and farther out,

casting his voice off, the shadows of time throwing flowers

on the water, his eyes in the water, the silver clouds

on the silver hooks, the iron bell, the blackest bell,

the grill smelling fading upon the wet stars, his voice

on the other side of time. Oh God be with my father

in the black shoe of the day. Today is today oh God.

It’s my father’s birthday. So we can sing it’s my father’s birthday,

it’s my father’s birthday. I pray to you

on this oblique shape, a flame, a piece of light sliding off

the boat, across the grey lake, the grey sound.