Prayer (After David Huerta’s Poem of the Same Name)
Prayer (After David Huerta’s Poem of the Same Name)
Lord,
save this moment.
It opened as if we two were feet
in a coupled walk, bits
of a walked beach–tide, ebb,
sand, wave;
as if our mouths might have sparked the light
of a leading moon–
It began as if beings who are sand and wave met only
in a frisson of foam, a bubbling
of rainbow,
which sounds
so stupid now—
as if waves didn’t crash,
as if sand didn’t flatten harder
than houses,
as if feet could not be buried
in an instant, buried again.
It opened as if we could not be weighted down
then tossed around;
as if neither of us could be drowned
by what spewed from our own throats;
as if we were known to emit waves
of soft sound only, and as if
a moment, any grain of time’s sand,
could withstand
our onslaught–
Lord, who even in this crush
knows found quiet,
who breathes
like the stars in this night
wider than ocean,
stars too far to care
for a glow going out,
and yet lend theirs–
Lord,
save this moment.
********************************
This is very much a draft poem and not about any particular current incident, but I’m sure we all know about moments gone sour! It was written for Grace’s (Heaven’s) prompt on With Real Toads to write something in the style of David Huerta, a truly wonderful Mexican poet. My title and first line are taken from Huerta.
PS –this has been edited since first posting, as I think I was not very clear in the first version, seen by the first six or seven commenters. (It’s still probably not very clear, but that may be okay.)
Explore posts in the same categories: poetry, UncategorizedTags: After David Huerta, blown save poem, http://withrealtoads.blogspot, lost opportunity, manicddaily, Prayer (Lord, Save this moment)
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ManicDDaily 
January 11, 2015 at 12:58 am
Beautiful, with raw emotions lapping at our feet. Those few last lines made me think of a kindness received from someone, who doesn’t even know about it.
I particularly liked this bit: “as if neither of us could be drowned/by what spewed from our own throats;/as if we were known to emit waves/of soft sound only”.
-HA
January 11, 2015 at 1:59 am
I like consistency of the rolling waves.. There are moments when that moment is like that feeling of being buried with each new crushing of the wave.
January 11, 2015 at 7:06 am
Such moments are difficult to capture, to even put into words ~ Feet, sands, wave, foam & stars too far to care for the glow, saving this moment is a beautiful capture ~
Thanks for joining the Sunday’s Challenge K ~ Have a good Sunday ~
January 11, 2015 at 7:07 am
Gawd, what a prayer, to what is deep as the sea in the heart and invokes a power that could even defeat gravity, and tides, and time, and “this crush.” Huerta was quoted by Grace as saying that poems had to go beyond their images somehow, a defiance that “helps us to live outside the logic of markets.” Possible, I think, reading this. The Spanish poets in my pantheon are all such lovers, and the anti-magnetic current fierce here is somehow the power of letting go while holding onto the memory.
January 11, 2015 at 7:43 am
Thanks. I think the poem is not conveying the meaning I intended, ha– but I suppose that is okay. The Huerta ones are wonderful.
I think sometimes I am rather obvious to the point of redundant but perhaps not. Thanks. K.
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January 11, 2015 at 7:47 am
Actually, Brendan, I don’t mean to address that reply to you. I am just interested to read comments and yours was top. (And I am on a phone.) I just wonder if I should have made it clearer but maybe doesn’t matter. Thanks . K.
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January 11, 2015 at 9:28 am
I like the two waves of your poem–the first making the moment so special and the second acknowledging its normalcy. And yet the rrichness of a life made up of such moments preserved in prayer can not be denyed. Lovely.
January 11, 2015 at 9:36 am
Thanks, Susan. I fear that the poem is really not finished, and maybe I should take it down, but I appreciate your kind comment. k.
January 11, 2015 at 10:44 am
STILL sadly lacking in elephants.
January 11, 2015 at 10:57 am
Ha. I did do two elephants the other day! (Yesterday–I think–re the car! Of course, they are little ones, just jammed together in the front seat!) k
On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:44 AM, ManicDDaily wrote:
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January 11, 2015 at 11:11 am
think we all know such moments… they seem to have all the spell of the universe to them and suddenly crash and we see the other side of them but also grow through those moments and in the end somehow realize the magic was still there&maybe still is
January 11, 2015 at 11:20 am
Thanks, Claudia. k.
On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 11:11 AM, ManicDDaily wrote:
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January 11, 2015 at 12:48 pm
surely and truly a moment worth saving
Have a nice Sunday
http://myblog-verses.blogspot.com/
much love…
January 11, 2015 at 12:52 pm
You have captured the tone of his work so wonderfully. I loved all of the images, feet, waves, sand……a pleasure to read this wonderful poem.
January 11, 2015 at 12:57 pm
I too feel you have captured his style. I love the stanza before the final two lines. If you do change anything don’t change that. : )
January 11, 2015 at 1:26 pm
There is no more spiritual moment than feeling oneself a part of the whole perspective of life – a dizzying realization that we are a particle and not entire of ourselves. That came through most beautifully in this poem.
January 11, 2015 at 3:12 pm
You have employed Huerta’s little stylistic twist of working the human body into odd but expansive and expressive metaphors here really well, k. The unusual phrasing intensifies the images, so that the visual of a relationship as a two-as-one walk on the beach becomes a journey through the scarring, blooming landscape of the psyche,both flight and descent. I especially like the third stanza, and the bracketing of first and last couplets.
January 11, 2015 at 3:45 pm
I “felt” it, if you know what I mean. It’s deep.
Greetings from London.
January 11, 2015 at 4:15 pm
I thought you captured it…
January 11, 2015 at 5:26 pm
What a beautiful prayer, vivid, worded as powerfully as the waves crashing through it.
January 11, 2015 at 8:06 pm
Thanks, Susie. k.
January 11, 2015 at 9:38 pm
Save the moments of both love and loss because from both there is a great story to be learned.
January 12, 2015 at 7:55 pm
🙂 I’m liking it immensely, please don’t take it down!!
To me is the “Prayer of Two Earthworms Stranded on Brighton Beach.” I say that because I really couldn’t figure out WHO was praying and when I came to the ‘spewing sand out of their mouths’ I was reminded of earthworms who generally pass the dirt they ingest after getting their nourishments out of it.
Wonder what earthworms do when they are transported to a beach instead of rich dark soil?
So excuse me for trying a literal interpretation, that insaneness just came upon me about the worms. And not Brighton, actually Cony Island Beach or near came to mind after reading of the violence of the elements. Brighton Beach sounded better to me. It’s on my mind because I am still kicking myself when the others went and I stayed in.
..
January 12, 2015 at 8:04 pm
Ha. Well, I pretty much always go in (to water) if I have a chance. What sort of surprised me about the poem is that I was thinking of something a little different than what came across. People’s interpretations are all perfectly valid–probably more so–it’s just that I was surprised. It is a little fresh for me to go back to it.
I once went into Coney Island for the polar bear swim on New Years. It was 17 degrees out. An experience. Of course, the salt water is warmer. My daughter and I went into an upstate pond on December 26th this year. However, it was an unseasonably warm day (as in, no ice!) She is much much braver than I for sure though. Take care, k.