A Small Prayer for the Unflummoxed Beaver - Kei Miller

so unmoved by the boat’s slow approach – the boat
drifting across the flat green acre of water; a small prayer
for these acres of water which, in the low light, seem firm;
the squirrels, however, are never fooled or taken in;
a small prayer for the squirrels and their unknowable
but perfect paths; see how they run across
the twisting highway of cedars, but never crash;
a small prayer for the cedars and their dead knees
dotting the water like tombstones;
a prayer for the cedar balls that break
as you touch them, and stain your fingers yellow,
and release from their tiny bellies the smell of old
churches, of something holy; a prayer for the holy
alligators; you owe them at least that;
just last night you thought of Hana and asked them
to pray with you (the prayers of alligators are potent);
at night the grass is full of their red and earnest eyes;
a prayer for the grass that alligators divide
in the shape of a never-ending S; you lean over
to gather it because your friend says it can be cooked
with salt and oil; she says in Burma it is called
Ka-Na-Paw; a prayer for the languages we know
this landscape by; a prayer for the fragile French
spoken by the bayou’s fat fishermen, the fat fishermen
who admit to the bayou, we all dying. You understand?
Savez? A prayer for the bayou and its bayouness
and the fabulously unflummoxed beaver,
so unmoved by the boat’s slow approach.

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Kei Miller (born 1978) Jamaica

Source: Writers in Motion