for everything

Before I was 21, probably after I turned 12, it became very clear that I did not know how to pray. If attempting a conversational approach, the topics got out of hand. The rosary was too much counting (though it worked well to calm nerves before shooting free-throws). Catholic missals were level 9 without the secret door passing a novice to the family matriarch - no cheating, you had to cross the threshold yourself. And I could not. But poetry feels like praying; it offers the world deep meaning and mystery not detached from the reverence of living. A dear friend who left this world introduced me to ee cummings; the first poem he read at our kitchen table now the scaffold of my eclectic prayer life.

for 37 years tomorrow : : : this is the birth day of life and love and wings

ee cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth day of life and love and wings;and of the gay great happening ilimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any - lifted from the no of all nothing - human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)