Prayer found in Chester Cathedral
Give me a good digestion Lord
And also something to digest.
Give me a healthy body Lord
With sense to keep it at its best.
Give me a healthy mind Good Lord;
To keep the good and pure in sight.
Which seeing sin is not appalled;
But finds a way to set it right.
Give me a mind [...]

Once you see
What He sees
Beyond our desires
And the broken pleas
You will think
What He thinks
That there’s more to this world
Than the rubble of autumn leaves
He will mend your scars
Even forgive you your sins
Clear away the dark clouds
To make sunshine glimmer on your face
For His love is unconditional
And His methods, a mystery
The impossible, so possible
And all by [...]

The child’s first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.
Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did [...]

WHO dat knockin’ at de do’?
Why, Ike Johnson, — yes, fu’ sho!
Come in, Ike. I’s mighty glad
You come down. I t’ought you’s
mad
At me ’bout de othah night,
An’ was stayin’ ‘way fu’ spite.
Say, now, was you mad fu’ true
W’en I kin’ o’ laughed at you?
Speak up, Ike, an’ ’spress yo’se’f.
‘T ain’t no use a-lookin’ sad,
An’ a-mekin’ [...]

CARELESSLY over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!
Silence, loved one, my heart!
Cracking, let it not break!
Breaking, break not with thee!

Black trees against an orange sky,
Trees that the wind shook terribly,
Like a harsh spume along the road,
Quavering up like withered arms,
Writhing like streams, like twisted charms
Of hot lead flung in snow. Below
The iron ice stung like a goad,
Slashing the torn shoes from my feet,
And all the air was bitter sleet.
And all the land was cramped [...]

O lonely heart so timid of approach,
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
To the faint touch of tender finger tips:
What is your word? What question would you broach?
Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind
To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale,
Your guarded life too exquisitely frail
Against the daggers of my warring mind.
There is [...]