Prayer by Philip Metres

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 22, 2015   Prayer   Philip Metres

Wither me to within me: Welt me to weal me common again: Withdraw to wear me weary: Over me to hover and lover again: Before me to form and perform me: Round me to rill me liquid incisions: Behind me to hunt and haunt me: Down me to drown indecision: Bury me to seed me: bloom me In loam me: grind me to meal me Knead me to rise: raise me to your mouth   Rive me to river me: End me to unmend me: Rend me to render me:            Copyright © 2015 by Philip Metres. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “During a struggle of chronic pain years ago, I began searching restlessly for prayers that might reach past my own resistance to prayers I’d inherited in my own faith tradition, and to write my own—often through the rhetoric or language of other prayers. This poem is born from an old prayer by Lancelot Andrewes, and plays with the paradox embedded in prayers of petition—that we are trying to reach outside of ourselves, but for something of ourselves.” —Philip Metres   Philip Metres is the author of Sand Opera (Alice James Books, 2015). He is professor of English at John Carroll University and lives in Cleveland, Ohio.   Photo credit: Robert Muller Most Recent Book by Metres   Sand Opera (Alice James Books, 2015) "Slowly in Prayer" by Matthew Lippman "Disciplines [If there is prayer, there is a mother kneeling]" by Dawn Lundy Martin "Prayer to Shadows on My Wall" by Mark McMorris Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038