During the Annual Camaldolese Oblate and Friends Retreat last September, our main speaker, Mary Stommes, former director of Give Us This Day and current Oblate Director at St. Benedict's, spoke about prayer and suggested a reflective writing exercise about what prayer means to each of us. Jane Dawson and I were in attendance and thought about bringing this to our October spiritual writing group with Richard Flout. What arrived are these two poems. Please enjoy.
Lost in Prayer
Merton says
breathing is prayer.
I think I agree.
One sits or stands
or walks along a street
and breathes
without knowing
where the breath
comes from or where
it goes. I close
my eyes, sit
in silence
of a room or backyard.
Who knows where
the prayer begins
and where it ends.
Does it end or begin
at all. Is prayer
about being alive
right now all the time?
Who are you, prayer?
A state of mind,
a moment of being,
a relationship with an Other
unseen and sacred;
held deeply
in the skin of my heart,
the hairs of my head?
Prayer,
are you music
or are you laughter?
You are elusive,
of mystery,
a secret embrace
in the moonlight
in the darkness
before morning.
Richard Flout (Obl. New Camaldoli Hermitage)
Untitled Prayer
Branches reaching
to the sky as if looking
for God’s sun rays
that embrace
the leaves before
they drop, dying on
their way to earth,
becoming the crunch
beneath our footsteps
during late afternoon
Autumn walks,
at day’s end,
knowing our unknowing
of each leaf’s journey
to become one with earth
the blessing from
beneath our feet
never dying
becoming the food
for new roots
during Winter
hibernation to
for emerging leaves
at Spring’s arrival
becoming new hands
of prayer that reach
for the sky
life eternal.
Elbina Rafizadeh, (Obl, New Camaldoli Hermitage)
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