Plea to a Particular Soft-handed Goddess
Where there are no streets
the world is less remembered
and hypotheses are lean and scattered.
I kneel before a pine tree standing;
listen to the locust-singing of my soul;
hope for a brimful of some sort.
I pray for raindrop ablution;
for embodiment of sandhill dreams;
for a scheme to end
this bughouse commotion;
these spasms of faddism.
The question is:
How to work out a pardonable truce
between one’s honest opinion
and the official attitude.
What I really want is for you
to come and stand beside me
and probe with pagan tenderness
Beyond my bone-weight
until you find a forgotten disclosure
like the surprise of my being.
by Parm Mayer
from Heartland, Poets of the Midwest
Northern Illinois University Press, 1967