Christian Wiman (b. 1966)
Prayer
For all
the pain
passed down
the genes
or latent
in the very grain
of being;
for the lordless
mornings,
the smear
of spirit
words intuit
and inter;
for all
the nightfall
neverness
inking
into me
even now,
my prayer
is that a mind
blurred
by anxiety
or despair
might find
here
a trace
of peace.
From Once in the West: Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2014)
Christian Wiman is the author, editor or translator of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose. He teaches religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and at Yale Divinity School. His most recent book is Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair (2023).
Dan Clendenin: dan@journeywithjesus.net
