This poem appears in our February 2016 Digital Issue. Read the entire issue by downloading it here.
What does it mean for a human animal
to lift his face and speak
to the God of his own making?
Can we imagine what the animals
themselves do, lowly, dignified,
how a fox prays, how a wolf
lowers his grey muzzle to the earth
and senses the throated
rumble of his origin?
What is the sense of struggle
with our universal human condition,
the oneness of breath we share
with everything before the Lord?
In our century, how popular or unpopular
is it to even mention God?
—
NICHOLAS SAMARAS won The Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for his first book, “Hands of the Saddlemaker.” His new book is “American Psalm, World Psalm” (2014) Ashland Poetry Press. He is working to place several manuscripts, and lives in West Nyack, New York where he teaches at the Charles Xavier School for the Gifted in nearby Westchester. saddlemaker@optonline.net
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