Member Poem

A Prayer for the Prayer

While straightening the tail end of October,
. . .I step across my rug
. . .of turf and see a bug
as slender as a drinking straw, a sober

pea-green, and unassuming as a nun.
. . .Perhaps she is entreating
. . .the god who has been heating
her body the whole summer not to run

away and strip the trees too rapidly
. . .and leave her in a blizzard.
. . .Now, basking like a lizard,
she doesn’t try to flee but studies me

with eyes that nearly dwarf her swivel-head.
. . .I stroke her back. She races
. . .away. Yet what she faces
is not my finger but the milky spread

that, by and by, will glaciate this lawn.
. . .She stops as if she’s caught
. . .my thought. Now on this plot
she’ll ambush flies till she and they are gone.

When will the mandibles of winter take
. . .her spirit like some prey?
. . .Who knows? But now, today,
she’ll revel in the sun — until I rake.