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Lenten Poems: Installment #2

Happy Monday to all! I always dreaded Monday until I stumbled upon a beautiful beginning to any toddler mother's week - Library Day! Every time we drive by our little library in the middle of town, Piper shouts, "Yay Yie-bee! Go there soon?" And I tell her, yes we will go there soon. Unless it's Monday. Then I get to say, "We're going there NOW!" And it just starts the week off on the right foot. The poem below (the second in a series of Lenten poems... if you haven't seen the first, click here) is about getting started off on the right foot as well. It's not library day, but it's about the practice of beginning the day in prayer. Confession - recently I have completely lagged in my discipline in this arena. Nonetheless, I believe in it and am determined to renew my efforts to begin the day there. A great tool for guided prayer I've been using for the past few months can be found at thetrinitymission.org. For more info, you can also read, yes, another one of my blog posts, here. It is the hardest thing to roust yourself out of bed a moment sooner than you absolutely have to - especially if you're still recovering from a year of not sleeping through the night because you have a sweet baby Piper Joy. If you manage to do that, then there's this moment of complete bewilderment while your brain kicks into gear. What you choose to do with your brain once it begins to actually function sets the tone for your morning (at least it does for me). And that, my friends, is what this next poem is about.


2.
(The habit of daily prayer)

Floor creaks in darkness.
My foot woke it up. 
My foot, itself barely awake,
Maintains my balance
Under an unwieldy bed head. 
The same foot whose arch and final toe push
Launched me into bed seven hours before.
My brain, full of times and places,
Meals, laundry, words,
Was full of a man in a new suit,
Blackberries in an ocean a moment before.

My feet pray in darkness for socks
as my heart prays for peace for this
brain full of spirals as my brain
prays for more love for my heart and
my soul hopes that day will come.

I exchange this jumbled exchange
For words from an older morning.
My feet say, Venite.
My heart says, Gloria.
My brain says, Jubilate.
My soul hopes in the
World without end.

photo from "Balcones Canyon Lands" by Dallas Lam

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