a poem for your sunday

 

LATE HABIT

Prayer, he now supposed, was possible--if

manifestly intermittent--and on occasion

he felt as if he dreamt his prayer.

On rarest moments, the prayer had come 

to speak itself, and he, in dim effusion,

took some care to listen as he spoke.

Offenses still occurred--the odd rebuff,

the snub, the petulant and prideful pout,

ubiquitous self-interest--but all had lately

become far more entertaining than offensive.

And those who bore no love for him became

the objects of his most tender turns of phrase.

Progress being, after all, at best incremental,

and the way ahead insistent in its endlessness,

a sudden calm had come to visit him, assuring

that the world he spoke and made partook of what

was actual, what lay poised beyond his ken,

and that such words would open ever and again.

                        --Scott Cairns

                                from Idiot Psalms

(The gospel reading this morning reminded me of this poem--And those who bore no love for him became/ the objects of his most tender turns of phrase.)