Whereby the Poet Cross-Pollenates

a Poem with a Prayer

"The true thought seems to have no author." 

                      ~Clarice Lispector

Here is my

heartfelt hypothesis:

based on the fertile

fact I initiate

every poem as

a visible letter to 

an invisible God

by testifying to

the human experience

as an experiment

in marrying 

sun and moon,

night and day

through

cross fermentation

resulting in a rebirth

both inner and outer

of states and behaviors

to exist not at odds,

but in harmony

thereby emancipating

King & Queen

to reign

above and below

in illuminated

appropriation  

of botany’s

secret

science

of the

Materia Prima.

Therefore, I submit

for examination

the following poem

as a

cross-pollenated 

prayer.

Take note that

it asks

for nothing

by way of

illustrating

it’s anomalous 

malformation,

a flower’s wish 

to be beautiful,

stemming from

the unnecessary 

yet poignant

aberration

of it’s being.

In this somewhat

unnatural state

the poet 

(here represented by myself)

may be

considered

 a rogue bee

abdicating the

unconscious machinations

of the swarm,

secluded from the hive,

hovering pariah-like 

above a daffodil,

encoded to make honey

it’s subversive calling.

Hands in prayer

like folded wings,

a worker bee

with no need

to question 

my occupation

as 

the poem,

like honey,

is my 

purpose.

Allow for

pure conjecture:

can praying 

make nectar

 through petition?

And is honey 

a wound’s remedy,

both 

antibody and cure?

Consider the following

internal processes:

(here voiced by the poet)

God give me 

the sense

to not pray 

for what i want,

let me not 

ask for more,

always more.

I will be

a prayer

without wanting,

a question 

with no need

for an answer.

Does to pray

without supplication 

still qualify

as prayer?

Even if one asks 

only that

His will be done,

one asks
for something.

I hereby 

offer evidence

that prayers have

gradually,

 if imperceptibly,

evolved

into the granting
of wishes

as opposed to

affirmations,

in which case

the bible

may well be

referred to

as the history

of the

begging bowl.

If asking betrays 

a lack of faith

then what is 

a prayer for?

Here, the poet

digresses:

Let me be grateful 

for my suffering

as there are others 

who would be

content with pain  

as slight as mine.

Still I petition

to be grateful.

If I am thankful, 

why am I

praying to
make it so?

In light of

the experimental nature

of the afore-mentioned 

poem 

which begs the question 

what is a prayer for,

how is it

I could

have been so

pedestrian? 

God, please let me find happiness.

God, please let me lose weight.

God, please heal my friend and neighbor.

God, please don’t let me lose my hair.

God, please let me get that job.

God, please let me find love.

God, please let me recover quickly.

I offer:

Why would God do or not do

any of these things?

What kind of riddle 

am I constructing?

What if we are being 

sentenced by

the very construct 

of our prayers?

To want or wish 

for anything

reinforces and 

assumes its absence;

every prayer 

a declaration 

of depravation.

What of those 

who pray

not knowing 

to be careful 

what they wish for?

What about the 

prayed for outcome

that inadvertently

brings on 

devastation for another,

that brings unwanted 

responsibility,

that inadvertently 

sinks the ship

after praying 

for rain,

or praying 

for a 

precipitous snow 

to melt,

then finding 

the valley 

flooded?

And so I have 

decided to be

declarative and 

confessional

only.

No more prayers, 

only poetry;

poetry immune 

to the literal,

poetry that honors

the soul

in all it’s mystery,

poetry that asks 

for nothing,

lives without utility,

a poem 

none want or need

because it 

merely exists

for awe 

of a flower.

*See poems 

only written

to be read

in the morning

when the senses are 

more delicate,

sensitive, and pure.

A day of living 

in the modern world

dulls the senses,

judgements gather 

like clutter

and as the day 

goes on

we find 

we are living

in our mind’s
private

debris field.

If we live

under the

assumption 

we are lost, 

abandoned,

then every man 

for himself

finds evidence 

in those

around him.

Others are 

our mirror

and when we 

don’t like 

what we see

we’ll not like 

ourselves either

because we 

can’t sever 

the connection

with how we feel,

therefore our 

disgust 

with the other

shames us both.

A prayer 

needs imagery

like a poem, 

yet images

renounce our 

reductions

as our minds

cannot process

a single

carrot, cloud, or cat;

anything 

un-man-made.

That said,

I fear my heart

is dyslexic,

proceeding from a place 

of outcomes and

working backward 

toward

seeds of feeling,

like characters

in search of an author,

in need of a source

to pin it’s

 misery on

unaware that

the source

is always 

the Beloved, 

and the Beloved

is an

eco-system

of circulating love.

Peter Valentyne

June 26th, 2019