The Chaos Section Poetry Project published my poem “More Years of the Insane: A Prayer” on their site and in their new anthology, Uprooted: Poems of Resistance, Witness, and Survival. Thank you, Nick Allison and Rachel Armes-McLaughlin! Please visit the site and read other poems from the anthology.
More Years of the Insane: A Prayer
(A response in kind to “For the Year of the Insane: A Prayer” by Anne Sexton. I used her first and last lines as mine.)
O Mary, fragile mother,
I hold a silver rosary,
pray, and listen.
Our world has been ill
for more years
than I can count.
Cancers grow in the garden.
Deniers seize dying bees.
Unceasing fires boil clouds,
melting relationships.
Earth’s axis is atilt, like our minds,
conflating reason.
Some can hang on no longer.
The bridge of faith crumbles
in their handholds. Worse yet,
mass shootings. An insurrection.
Political corruption. Treason. Wars.
The United States’ fall from grace.
The vulnerable: immigrants, trans people—
anyone considered easy to bully.
To blame—cast aside as OTHER.
Protestors brutalized or shot dead by ICE
for standing with immigrants. The poet.
The ER nurse. Peace lovers. Gone!
ICE grabs anyone of color to fill quotas.
Even citizens. Even babies from their cribs!
And throws them into ‘concentration camps,’
where they beg for decent food. A bottle.
Medical care. A clean toilet. A bed.
An immigration attorney.
Time itself is moving us
backwards
into a black hole.
ll.
O loving mother of mercy,
hear my prayer. I’m a helpless elder.
With scars carved into
my left knee and spine.
For comfort, my pen and prayers.
For safety, pepper spray.
I admit that though I hold this rosary,
I live in fear. Thrown off my axis.
All that I love in my world
is covered in sludge. I have
no strength to shovel myself
out of this hovel.
I am locked
in the wrong house.
© Barbara Leonhard
You can purchase the paperback version of Uprooted: Poems of Resistance, Witness, and Survival for under $10.00.
It’s cheaper on IngramSpark. More details are available at this link.
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