To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
Enacting in its own beauty what it prays for, “Eagle Poem” reminds us that prayer is something heard, received, and lived before it is distilled into words. The Spirit dwells within us, we are taught—a truth that not only Christians but people of most faith traditions believe: God speaks in the still, small voice of conscience, of prompting, a voice within us, teaching and reminding and inviting. Prayers come as, by most poets’ accounts, poems come—given, at least in raw form, to be crafted with a humility we might well call obedience. Harjo, a contemporary poet of the Muskogee (Creek) nation, says of her own work, “I’m still amazed. And I still say, after writing poetry for all this time, and now music, that ultimately humans have a small hand in it. We serve it. We have to put ourselves in the way of it, and get out of the way of ourselves.”*
What might it mean to “put ourselves in the way of” prayer? The poem offers one answer: “open your whole self / To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon / To one whole voice that is you. / And know there is more. . . .” To pray is to open up prayer space and let prayer happen, patiently, without too quickly filling that space with words, to allow information and invitation to come from any direction—from the cosmos, from the self, from the world of plants and animals that teach us things by their ways of being, at once complex and innocent. I think of the animals in Scripture that were appointed as bearers of God’s message: the dove, the donkey, the cock, the eagle. Those that figure in historical scenes and those used for poetic effect (“they shall mount up on wings like eagles”) together serve to remind us that animals have special places as servants and signs in both the divine and natural order.
More than once I’ve heard stories from friends about how, in the days following the death of a beloved friend or family member, a bird appeared at an unusual time or in an unusual way, as though a sign that all was well. They took comfort from those gulls, pelicans, or unseasonal robins they believed were messengers. These stories and the evidence from generations and traditions of human testimony indicate that God may speak through nature directly and personally when we are attentive.
The poem’s specificity about “that Sunday morning” locates the eagle’s flight in time—not just in legend or lore. Written in 1990, the poet’s words carry within them seeds of a long tribal tradition as well as an acute consciousness of the historical moment in which this prayer is offered. This is the way of biblical stories—this mountain, this slave girl, this fig tree, this road, horse, man, moment. In prayer we are met. Encounters with God may happen when we set out to pray, but also when we do not: our disinclinations put no limit on God’s purposes. And when we are met, our hearts may be “swept clean.”
The poem ends with a lovely, urgent, emphatic repetition, asking that our lives be accomplished and made whole “In beauty. / In beauty.” That beauty is to be prayed for, and that beauty is to be sought and found in prayer is an understanding many of us need to reclaim. This Creek prayer, like many prayers from Native American traditions, is slow and deliberate, making ample space for pause and breath, keeping lines short and strong, ending with a phrase that echoes like a drumbeat. In Ecclesiastes we read, “He has made everything beautiful in its time”; in the Psalms, that “His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth.” And Isaiah prophesies, “In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious. . . .” God’s way is one of beauty, and all beauty points to its Source in the heart of the Creator. So it is right that prayer be made beautiful, that it call our attention to beauty, and that beautiful lives and the beauty that feeds and teaches us are goods for which we are right to pray.
*. See the interview at poetryfoundation.org.