Talking to Myself as Prayer
Hello friends. This holiday season, more than most, is a time of gratitude. The photo highlights my mom, Katie, who loved me all the way, myself, and my younger brother George. Who could have realized the fine people, animals and other creatures who blessed my life? I feel closer to them in old age. I honor my loved wife of 27 years, Peggy Herrman, as well. My fourth volume of poems, “Interbeing,” is a collection of writings about personal and earthly spirituality. I’d like to think I am writing in the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin, Mary Oliver, Anthony de Mello, Thich Nhat Hanh and many others. I thank my small group of Athens poets who meet weekly to share ideas on new poems (and old ones). I invite you to read more here on my website, and feel free to order my poetry books directly through PayPal. To you and your family and friends, gratitude all around. Thanks, Gene
“Talking to Myself as Prayer” (2008)
“Who are you talking to?” she asks.
“Myself, a great conversationalist,” I say,
partly miffed, partly to fend off
a call to the white-coat people.
Yet spending more time alone
in old age leads to a different grasp
of religion and evolution.
A wider scheme confirms
our outward focus from the cave—
fire to avoid, small animals that cuddle at night,
the shaman talking about a hunt for wild pigs,
the wooly mammoth spotted yesterday,
and the news on that wandering tribe.
For millennia few lived very long,
so spatial mind dominated the ages.
I’m here with coffee, the boss in his office,
kids at school, looking toward game day.
Religion falls into that groove
with the divine “out there” in church,
synagogue, mosque, temple, in
popes, preachers and collection plates,
in the up there, over there and even
down there for bad guys.
Few of us talk to ourselves any more
except a few oddball mystics and old guys
with time on our hands.
As I’m no longer saving the world
with grand gestures,
moving among myriad things,
a weird and scary God breaks
into my solitude and self-talking,
one immersed in every
suffering cosmic molecule.
Everything becomes God contending, coping,
expanding, laughing, praying, consoling.
In remaining days, I hope to be
more aware of this ultimate prayer
that envelops me as the universe itself.
