Of Poetry and Prayer

yesterday's scene far from the maddening crowd

 

 

 

 

the crowds 

chanted 

and waved

littering the street with branches

as the town shook with excitement

and i wonder

what exactly was accomplished that day

because i know 

where the crowd was

a few days later

After a day of watching noisy crowds all day yesterday, I wrote the above 10 lines as one of many "10 lines" I've written since the beginning of the Lenten Season.  I post them on my Facebook page.  This morning, a person I respect commented that he read my "prayers" and added, "If it were up to me, I would gather them into a collection  But that's just me."  

I thought about that word prayer.  I thought my 10 lines more poetry than prayer.  But then I read these lines from Bodmin Hermit on  Twitter:  "The heart of prayer is not to be found in the recitation of many words but in opening ourselves to a different level of consciousness which the Christian tradition calls the contemplative mind, or the mind of Christ." 

Maybe poetry and prayer.

are more closely related than I realized!