Invocation
If I could rub this midnight lamp
and win three wishes for my words
The first I’d wish is for thy Will
to pump my heart and through my pen
Thy Wisdom spill, for sentences
like circling birds: to be your stamp
Is my prime wish, to wrestle true
through mud and mire, not like the priest
Who idols books, but as a soiled
prophet, a wrestler of tigers,
A Samson wielding syllables
that name the beast, sweep clear the view
That ripple like rivers, that sigh.
As to a second wish -- I’d wish
Upon each page your flow and Grace;
that from my pen in Beauty’s skirt
Your sway, your swish, your pining winds
may pierce the age, your tall oaks cry.
In such Beauty, serene, sublime,
that ruffles waves and whitens clouds
Dip my ink, mirror creation,
my paragraphs please harmonize
With eagles proud, give wings to my
imagination; yours make mine.
Then, should I hazard one last wish:
to nouns and verbs and adjectives
I’d wish for Love’s pure consonants,
for vowels round as wedding rings,
For marriage ‘twixt sound and substance
with form caressed, creator kissed.
Or does this wish them all embrace?
Perhaps a pen in love with words
With content wrapped in lover’s vows
need not invoke your confidence;
Perhaps in Love my words right placed
will win your Will, your Love, your Grace.
