​Prayer turns everything
Inside out and upside
Down, inside and out,
Where pride is humble-pied,

And especially along the
Seam where the two worlds meet,
A thresher that clobbers the sour
And stirs upward the sweet.

​At the pinnacle,
All of our abilities,
Look like trash,
Like squashed fleas,

Then like the angels
Who are burned in the river
Of fire, we come back
Our lights flicker, they shiver,

That is the power that hides
Kindness, that is the rough
Husk, bowl that holds the milk,
We tell the light, “Enough.”

​The letters inside me 
Are churning, a bet 
Changes into a shin,
A mem into a tet,

The lightning bolt of
Thought number one
And thought number two
Blazes the horizon,

Torches chasing each other
And the more we learn wisdom
And deeds, and leach anger
And lust from heart and cranium,

Oh the letters are fireworks
Or constellations, or streaming
Glowing words, my mind rises, still,
And pauses its ceaseless screaming.

​Heaven is not stingy
(Keep that in mind--
That its rivers pour kindness
And its waters wind

With light and calm,
Pleasure and Eden, benevolence)
And here we can receive,
The more we try, more opulence,

And with everything fine,
With every teaching and good deed,
(You can see with your own eyes)
How life and goodness are freed

Until you are full with 
Light and peace, and
Glad with what you have,
Because even a trace in your hand

Is beyond estimate.
Our work is to improve
The world, with all of its
Wealth, its honor. We move

(The Rock does not move)
Up, in the name of our
God, on the breast of the meadow
Whose kindnesses flower. 

​One cup of silver melts
For the ultimate good (which
Means it can’t be called
Anything in any ultimate niche).

And you feel that the soul
Of your life has distilled
The highest being, that
It is connected to and filled

By the gears that impel
Who it is and how it seems--
And with that, its thought
Flies and its streams

Of highest will arise.
And from the box of kind
Being, a name in silver
Glinting lines is signed.

​This bird knew
That nothing is in vain
The claw of the wolverine
The cluster of threads around the grain

That every thought
That every word and act
Clinging to light that is higher
Than light, to being beyond the name of fact

That it is all alive,
That it is moving and that
It is good, that it makes
The red more red, the scent at

Harvest season more crackly
Sweet, the sun more kind,
And when this globe is blessed
So too these thoughts inclined

These hairs that embrace
The wheat, so that the charm
Of the entire field to the horizon
Is embraced within an unseen arm.

​Sometimes resting is not rest
It is a scratching in the bone
It is the sun motes floating
In the west, it is the drone

Of bees in the eucalyptus
Trees, their constant buzz
Creates in all a murmur
Of a coming peace that one time was.

​I forget, and all the letters
Of my thoughts scatter,
And they don’t come back home
Till the light floods my habitat, or

The home of us all, as
Memory drives back to the mansion.
All these thoughts jostle
To fit into a scansion,

They shine flashlights
On each other, but fade to a wisp,
I forget, and my words
Are fried to a crisp,

Till I can’t stand your thoughts
'Cause they stand in my way,
And I douse you with coffee
In this lousy cafe.

And the job of some people
(Who are wiser than wise)
Is to open the vents
And blow the smoke from our eyes,

And restore our poor minds
On this rattling train,
Rocking and shaking 
To our original terrain,

They gather the scattered,
They rope in the strays,
They restore the poor herd
To the start of its days.

And the vine whose leaves
Are dusty carmine
Produces fine grapes
And a truth-glinting wine.