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
