Prayer and Poetry Move Mountains

Prayer and Poetry Move Mountains

Everyday at six o’ clock my mother, sister and I would pray together in the corner of the room where our altar of the Santo Nino and Virgin Mary lay. We recited the rosary, each taking turn the supplication and the careful prayers that came along every bead. We prayed together until I reached the latter part of my high school years. The rhythm of my prayers did not seem to have the same weight and gravity as my mother. When she summoned those words—Hail Mary full of grace—the words were deep. But it came deeper when she said it in Ilokano. I learned to pray because of my mother. I learned to pray in community with my sister and father.

I regret that I do not say the rosary often, but I regret more that I do not get to say it with the people that have taught me how to love. The feeling of peace and calmness did not so much come out of saying the words of the rosary but with the communion I felt with those uttering the same words. There is something mysterious, powerful, sacred in being with people who crave a sense of wholeness in something greater than what we see. When I listen to her pray the rosary I hear her say, “Hope. I have hope, there is a way out of this and it will be beautiful.”

She was a poet, my mother. I realize now that my mother was doing poetry. Prayer and poetry is one and the same thing. Prayer and poetry have hope as the common denominator. Prayer and poetry are irrational in the way we hope are irrational. The early Christians remind us “hope that is seen is not hope.” Prayer puts into words what we cannot see or describe to ourselves and other people in our common language.

I recently tried to register for class on poetry at the university. The professor, a world renowned and decorated writer, responded that I would not be permitted to join his class because it was reserved for students who are studying for their doctorates, as if to imply that poetry makes sense when you have studied it meticulously and deciphered every meaning. He added that I needed to have a great deal of experience in poetry and poetics. I replied that I was sorry that I did not qualify to learn his kind of poetry and that I hope someday that I would be able to do poetry.

I realize later that I did not want to learn his kind of poetry—rational and lonely.

It is no surprise then why people feel inadequate in attempting to do poetry and prayer. We have been taught to believe that we need to have a graduate degree to do poetry and that we need to subscribe to a religion or go to church to say a prayer. This is a lie sold to us by those who want to keep hope away from us. We cannot allow them to have a monopoly on hope. We cannot allow professional poets and clergy people to define what is a poem and what is a prayer. To allow this to happen would mean the malnutrition of our souls and set darkness on the vision of our dreams. Our hope lies in poetry and prayer.

In these difficult times and desperate moments poetry and prayer needs to be said through the collective longing of the community we hold in our hearts. I did not understand then when my mother said: “We will get out of this and it will be beautiful”. She was naming and challenging all the injustices and the tragic happenings of her past and believed that only beauty can come out of this. There was a kind of suffering she was going through; but she suffered without losing her dignity—she had dignity because she suffered in community; she suffered with her children and husband and all those she had left behind in the homeland—Ilocos—of her birth. Indeed, it was beautiful.

In recent times I have found my way back to a community of believers. I hear each time the community pray the words, “only say the word and I shall be healed”. These words contain in them power to move mountains and silence storms. For what can be more poetic and prayerful then believing only in the simple utterance of words that one can be healed.

We need to do poetry more; we need to say prayers more. We need hope right now for our community and ourselves.