Prayer in Search of a Liturgist

And if we pray
Should we find a service
Or something
A box
As it were
In which to keep it

Give it
A liturgical home
A formal place
To live
Like a tabernacle or
A reliquary

Or may our prayer
Rise to the trees
And that’s
Enough

Not even to find a nest
But leave the tree’s tendrils
To aim
Even for soaring
Blue then white
Then to the black of space

Or
Un-Claudius like
Might it be helpful
For a prayer
To descend
Into the ground
To talk with
Seeds
Or to the ocean floor
For octopi-like things or
Expulsive vents

Or to go down
To a kind of nothingness
That you are Lord of
Too

Directionful
Directionless

Might prayer go where it needs to be
Where it un-needs to be
For your approval
And
Somehow
For application
Even without much more
Than itself
By itself
To consider

By us
By tree
By space
By Earth
By depth

By you

C L Couch


Photo by Bogomil Mihaylov on Unsplash

(Claudius in Hamlet declares “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;/Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”)