Prayer Elms

Your voices fill the shadows of the elms.

The prayer elms,

Now in deep shadow,

Spare and spiky

In the darkening gloom.

Your voices, Lord, swell

The empty prayer elms

As if you were hidden

In the crusty bark,

Sheathed,

Roots touching the waters

Of this muddy stream,

Full in winter,

Your voices, Lord, in the elms—

The prayer elms.

The deep madness of your voices, Lord,

That haunts us—

In the spiky hands

Of the prayer elms,

Where your branches are destroyed,

And battered

Into the finger roots.

Burned out, dessicated,

Wandering,

In the tunnels of the earth, seeking

The knowledge of your Flesh,

The kernels

Of your eyes,

The pollen and the ash

Of your skin,

Crushed,

Washed away

By the moontides.

Your voices, Lord, in the prayer elms,

Hidden

In the alpine flowers of the White Mountains,

Where we sat down and wept,

For our age,

Our sorrows,

And the let the icy armour of snow

Become our comfort.

Envelop us

Against the darkness

Of your voices, Lord,

In the prayer elms.

Your whispers when the owl

Calls out at night.

When the chill grips us.

Your prayer elms,

Like a Cross in the moonlight.

When we hear your dark laughter,

Half real,

In our dreams,

And still the prayer elms,

White now

In the silence

Of the simple snow.