“Prayer, Prairie, 1872” and Other Poems

Intégrité: A Faith and Learning Journal Vol. 21, No. 2 (Fall 2022): 35-44

“Prayer, Prairie, 1872” and Other Poems

Mark Tappmeyer

Prayer, Prairie, 1872

You wondered if your prayer reached beyond the low ceiling of sod

where the goat grazed the grass on the flat roof,

its hoof step and munching woven into “Give us this day our . . . chew . . . step . . . chew.”

The dry sky, seed corn gone to rats, fever collecting on Maggie’s brow.

You sent hope soaring like an arrow into the blue above the wide Kansas plain.

You doubt it reached past the plop of the goat that never bent a knee.

Potency

“For the wages of sin is death . . . .” The Bible, Romans 6:23

Here, dip your corn chip into this pulp of tomato and chunks of Anaheim peppers floating like tropical islands in a sea of steam. Tangy, at 500 units on the Scoville scale of pepper heat, don’t you agree?

But if you want more flame, try this slurry of Tabasco peppers or challenge yourself with the salsa of devil-hot Habaneros, 50,000 or 350,000 units of blaze. The difference between a candle and a volcano.

Mind you—and it’s not recommended-if you have a wish for death, touch the tip of your tongue to this paste of the lord, the high king, of hot peppers, the Carolina Reaper, all bones and scythe and white fire. A cremation at 1,641,300 units.

More potent than the fabled Red Ghost pepper. Nearing the caliber of sin.

Habitation

“You . . . were deeper inside me than my deepest depths . . . .”

St. Augustine

Are you, O Master, somewhere behind my bladder or within the coils of my intestines?

Are you in the closet of my memories, the flash fire of my desires, even the wreckage of my confusions?

Somewhere you are there, crawling through me like the Holy Worm.

Longing

On the first round of the morning they found him lifeless, as was expected,

but they gasped when they pulled back his blanket.

Every inch of the old fellow, all of him-each joint and muscle, his ears, the nails on his toes, the toes— were stretched like pulled taffy.

His pug nose had gone serpentine. The legs of his pajamas looked shinnied up his calves. His ankles, jutting from his knee socks, dangled off the end of the mattress.

“Well,” offered an orderly, “he said he was longing to go.”

On the Subway

“For we are . . . the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved . . . .”

1 Corinthians 2:15

I watched the man standing next to you lean closer, so slight a move. Were you aware? His nostrils flared like nostrils do at scents of honeysuckle for one or lemon balm or resplendence, when it ladens air. Something sweet in you.

A woman, passing to a seat, paused by your arm—did you not see?— and raised her nose like one does whiffing blooms of trumpet vine, of a puff of glory too, climbing a pole.

Down the aisle eyes scanned the car as if the smells they smelled were seeable, like eyes do when searching fragrances of mint, of peony or wonderment, wild-grown and now invasive.

Combustible

“In the composition of the human frame, there is a good deal of inflammable matter . . . .” George Washington

You realize you are little more than a pile of shavings. Kindling really or pine straw, maybe dried leaves, packed foot to hip. Belt to neck. A skull-full of combustibles.

You knew a woman stuffed with shredded newsprint who went up in a flash.

Squeeze

“God sent his own Son, born of a woman . . . .” Gal. 4:4

It was stuffing a skyscraper into a shoe box,

a bridge into a thimble,

the cosmic, the glorious, into a wad of tissue.

Atoms pinched infinitely dense with each cram of the Almighty foot, the heft of the Divine palm.

Until until a baby, this baby, had formed.

Descent

"The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout . . . .” 1 Thessalonians 4:16

He cinched his belt and stepped to the tip of all things, the apex of imagination. Cancer the Crab and Cassiopeia Vain Queen and a crowd of celestial bodies floated far below, as did human vanity, not yet a pinprick of light in the pitch black. A flick of the knees and He launched, arms outstretched into a cross, plunging as if forever. And ever. Slicing the thinness, the emptiness. Missiling down. A shout beginning to curl in his throat.

Jelly Beans

“I don’t believe in bad jelly beans, just bad people eating them.”

Kelly Ripa on “Live with Kelly and Ryan”

I want the black one in the middle of the pile, the licorice bean with its tinge of the woody and the floral, sneakingly bitter and sweet.

The mouth of the jar is too small, so I shake and swirl the beans. The colors—red and yellow and blue, green and white--rise and sink and rise like cars on a roller coaster.

The sole black bean appears then disappears.

Could Kelly Ripa be wrong-that there are bad beans, at least some with insolence, refusing to give in, like me, endlessly working this jar?

Defense

“[H]ow cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good!”

C. S. Lewis

The bulwark you throw up with sweat, picks, and shovels a bucket of self at a time.

The walls, entrenched branchless, sharpened with persistence, with which you encase yourself.

The guard towers you erect. The sentries in squads with narrowed eyes, armed with blades and pikes and pride, relieved on the hour.

Even the endless routine-the practice thrusting, feigning, blocking.

The tutorials in slashing.

If you only knew what you were working so hard to keep out.