Signing Petitions

 

It was about prayer

Something I was thinking while

Nodding off

(officially, I’m trying to learn napping)

Prayer can be done in any stance, I think

(for instance, the entry into dozing)

Standing, sitting, kneeling, even

Prostrate

For we see the nuns and monks do this

And others in obeisance

Maybe the positions are for us

Appealing to ourselves

A signal to our peers

A sign of intent

 

What do we need to concentrate,

What makes a prayer a prayer?

It might be focus

It might be lining up the body to have this

To promise it

But can’t we pray on the fly?

In an instant, while we must be doing something else

A prayer sounding

Off the cuff in an

Emergency

 

Like a child who baptizes someone

In a dire situation

It counts

The books must record it happened in

This way

 

So prayer matters

In whatever way

Whichever muscles might be

Angled here or there

Sometimes we can’t apologize enough

Sometimes we can’t apologize at all

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Bill Kuykendall, Photographer (NARA record: 2708009) – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17118564