"Prayer" by Jorie Graham

Jorie Graham is an American poet who grew up in France and Italy. She went to school at NYU and has taught at a number of universities since.

Key terms: free verse, enjambment, imagery

Prayer

Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl  
themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the  
way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-
                                                                      infolding,
entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a  
visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by  
minutest fractions the water’s downdrafts and upswirls, the  
dockside cycles of finally-arriving boat-wakes, there where  
they hit deeper resistance, water that seems to burst into  
itself (it has those layers), a real current though mostly  
invisible sending into the visible (minnows) arrowing
                                    motion that forces change—
this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody gets  
what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing
is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by
each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself,  
also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something  
at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through  
in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is  
what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen  
now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only  
something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go.  
I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never.  
It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.

This poem begins as an impressionistic description of a school of minnows swimming below the dock where the narrator is standing. She thinks about the motions enacted by the minnows as they swim back and forth, around and around, simultaneously following and creating the current in the water. She acknowledges that they follow this structure without resistance, because this is the water in which they live- because it's more than currents and school, it's the life of the water itself, where they thrive. This observation moves her meditation to think about humankind, and how faith interacts with our thinking in much the same way. She ends her poem with short statements that are actually questions, leaving the reader to wonder what faith means in this context and what the "Prayer" really is. Graham uses enjambment to move the poem and the description here, and she uses a vocabulary that requires attention and focus throughout the reading. It's almost unnerving because the depth of thought and vocabulary makes it seem as if the poem is straightforward and understandable, yet I cannot really figure it out.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/176600