Saturday, August 24, 2024

A PRAYER FOR THE LIVING, FOR OUR COUNTRY: AFTER THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, AUGUST 2024

by Jan Zlotnik Schmidt

 

in response to Deborah Digges’s “The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart”


 




Let the wind break through

the walls of our chests

draw out curdled breath  anger

from past reckonings.

 

Let the wind race through the chambers 

of our hearts   cleanse the pathways  

erase the stench of hatred 

strip away the detritus of ridicule.

 

Let the wind eddy through us 

through small openings  

dissolve the particles of despair

that clog the beating heart.

 

Sweep them away, sweep

away passivity   turgid like

the air after a tropical storm.

Pointless static gone from our brains.

 

Clear out the darkness in  

our house of gall  darkness hardened like dried

blood   until we are again open-hearted

joyous   vessels of infinite worth.

 

Jan Zlotnik Schmidt’s work has been published in many journals including Kansas Quarterly, The Alaska Quarterly Review. Her poetry volumes include We Speak in TonguesShe had this memory (the Edwin Mellen Press), Foraging for Light (Finishing Line Press), and Joseph Cornell: The Man Who Loved Sparrows, co-written with Tana Miller (Kelsay Press).  Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Press Prize.