Last week I offered to my blog followers a poem I had written. I have not written in this language for many years. I’ve been writing prose—my blog, the classes I teach, letters on email, business stuff—always probing toward some new understanding. I used to write poetry when younger. I was a teacher of poetry for many years, teaching both the work of great poets and helping my students learn to write poetry. My students often startled me with the freshness of their language and the depth of their insight. They inspired me to see and say things differently. So I wrote poetry too.

I’ve been reading a lot from the poet Mary Oliver. There are so many of her marvelous poems swirling around these days, surely because of a fine documentary aired last week. One of her poems, “I Worried,” strikes a chord with me right now.  

I want to share this morning a poem I’ve written. It’s not an essay. It’s a poem. There’s a difference. I confess I’ve not written a poem for some thirty years. I used to write them all the time. And I taught lots of poetry. I apologize to some of the poets on my blog list. Some of you even took a few of those classes with me. Bear with me. I’m a bit rusty.

In January 1947, the great Southern American writer Flannery O’Connor, while still a young student, began keeping a prayer journal, really a small collection of prayers. I’ve been rereading this lovely little volume, A Prayer Journal, in my own journey on prayer. She was twenty-one years old when she began the writing. She was a student at the famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop. We learn from these youthful prayers how passionately she wants to become a great writer. Will God help show her the way, she asks? We also learn that she wants to love God as fully as she can, a desire not separate from her desires about vocation. Can these two deep desires live side by side, she ponders?