Birthday Prayer: Mother, let me lie in the mud
Mother, You who alone walk the hidden passageways of my heart, You who sense my every twist and turn, You who know my littlest truths and subtlest lies, You who see my most secret desires and lusts naked, Even ones that I do not dare acknowledge… Hear me, heed this prayer: Let my all be taken, returned to the good earth. Let the slow-burning fires of my many thirsts be quenched. Let my various hungers cease their endless creeping about the earth Like sleepless ghouls seeking satiation, saturation. Let them die unfulfilled For they are never silenced by fulfilment. For far too long have my brothers and sisters been cast away into the cold. The eloquence of this two-legged child who prays too frequently Makes you deaf to my legless and many-legged brethren Who suffer and die in silence. Their hunger and pain, their indignity As they are driven from their waters and their lands, Their homes desecrated, torn from their roots in the earth Are plain to those who see and hear. Why...