I Am a Prayer

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of rain in the desert when the flowering ones need a drink

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of sun when there is no end to night

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of ocean when there is no more blue

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of clouds when few make rain songs

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of roads that lead everywhere but home

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of white birds who cannot fly through a storm of fear

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of fire who arrived to care for humans, then was misused to destroy

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of wind, whose breathing carries seeds, pollen, and songs to feed the generations

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of moon who wears the night as a shawl to hide that which should never be spoken

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of grief, when life gambled with death and gave up families for guns

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of smoke, wandering the broken houses, the littered ground looking for a white flag of reason

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of mountains, those tall humble ones who agreed to lift our eyes to see

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of forever making a path of beauty through the rubble of eternity

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of poetry speaking the soundlessness of the dead who return to speak in prayer

I am a prayer with children on my back roaming the earth house of destruction and creation

I am a prayer without end

--Joy Harjo

Published in The New Yorker, November 27 2023 issue