was a preacher, who greeted me with exuberance

shining faced smile, who told me stories of his ministries

the founding of his several country churches,

leading a group of people who walked around my town

praying, significance deepening roots within

me over time as I thank them again and again

for doing prayer work, for being soul warriors,

for the concept I only now begin to grasp

of raising needed energy, of healing the ground

of protecting and cleansing and blessing

My thanks for his kindness to me

in my manual wheelchair, in my pained brokenness

for the anonymous bestowal of blessings on this

country place whose innocence has been stalked

by child/sex traffickers and kid’s hunger

drug dealers from frack zones flying into our small airport,

wife murderers who didn’t want to pay

for child support, its beauty lost on many born here

who turned to cooking meth and stuffing

dead bodies in closets of abandoned mansions,

whose pain relief became surprise addictions

I thank him for circling us with love

though frayed and wispy, still wreathing

green hills, for taking it to the streets,

not just sitting in pews,

remaining convinced among the convinced –

they made their insights actions,

their embodied souls put to the invisible work

of true belief and love

I joined a prayer procession on a downtown street

visiting hometown New York City one Easter,

we walked the stations of the cross in the Village

as if we rode a holy train, blessing and praying

from MacDougall to West 10th

manifesting an energy that cleared,

healed, a quiet amazement

A wonderful woman leader with Amnesty International

talked about using prayer to counter

the horrors we read about and sought to end

in our shared efforts to engage young people

to write, protest, fight the structures

that sanctioned torture and oppression

Now I know more about how much is needed

how deeply and profoundly every good

intention is required, how bricks require mortar

until we remember how to move and melt rock,

like pyramids from Giza to Teotihuacan

to Antarctica, to sing megaliths into

place and glory, how to transmute souls