Prayer for the Long-Lost Invocation
by Caleb Braun
Once said: send me soundly through the sea
Heard the regal ones wore thick robes
Heard the naysayers touched dumbly your wrists
Heard you once appeared through Mom’s mouth
In Colorado woods, dark, all disciples asleep, she said
Release me your image that I might praise you
Heard: this is all your eyes can bear to see
So shadows of Christ on the campgrounds until
The DNA read perfectly its own writing
Inside her: renal tubes unraveled, knew no other
Way laid out before her
Not a lamb not a goat not a son
Strapped on wood take her place
Once said: scared shitless save me
Heard Speaker of the House call
The Navajo Wind Talkers’
Language “the simplest of weapons”
And out came the secret my house built
On a billion weathered words
Once said: here am I, now I am
Each child I tried to hide in obedience to
God America Father purple mountains
Say now nations of the Earth be blessed
God can hear us we are all too loud
Her prayers made no revision
This sword knows no other gesture
Gash the left hip leaving Lord
Cover our eyes with the blood
With the little white lamb blood we can read that
But what of his hand on the stone
Bring the soothsayers Chaldeans astrologers
We have been found wanting
Wanting borders keep at bay the other
Inside us reaching out wanting tongue
Of flame now heard
Hearing voices marks one insane
Blessed be silent that fullness beneath us that sea
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