Thursday Poem - Invocation

Let us try what it is to be true to gravity,

to grace, to the given, faithful to our own voices,

to lines making the map of our furrowed tongue.

Turned toward the root of a single word, refusing

solemnity and slogans, let us honor what hides

and does not come easy to speech.  The pebbles

we hold in our mouths help us to practice song,

and we sing to the sea.  May the things of this world

be preserved to us, their beautiful secret

vocabularies.  We are dreaming it over and new,

the language of our tribe, music we hear

we can only acknowledge.  May the naming powers

be granted.  Our words are feathers that fly

on our breath.  Let them go in a holy direction.

Jeanne Lohmann

from Between Silence and Answer

(Pendle Hill Publications, 1994)