In the Chevrolet on the way to work,
I have earned the strategy of prayer,
how it can fill up the stop light of time
and claim from the day its own importance.
Along the loop that does not come back on
itself, incomplete, no snake swallowing
its tail, I squeal the brakes to stop first light.
In my left lane, I look to car window
of the right lane and surely the blond there
applies mascara, black like the asphalt,
or else she exercises her pupils
training them to follow the wand she waves.
I know again the limits of space and
how it can fill up the stop light of time.
That part of this road would edge around
a salt water well where tank trucks fill up,
dozens of apartments where workers live,
and a cotton field plowed up this time of
year for planting--oh, how the West Texas
wind tears a cloud of terror from loose brown soil.
Is my ease forward through this dust with my
purpose preying on me like intense pride,
so I can talk it over with myself
and claim from the day its own importance?
As if now we were waiting in the next
line of cars for the light to change to green,
most of this going is going for broke.
By putting it all into arrival
there, there is no other event can rival
how we described it in the words we spoke.
Feeling the hum and power of machine,
the self searches for its part in the text,
and in the thinking silence I have prayed
in the Chevrolet on the way to work.
I park the automobile in its place
near the building where I spend my day.
As I walk across the parking lot, I
murmur or mumble my final amen.
I find the sidewalk leading to my door,
and I unlock it with my silver key.
From my desk there, I can see the fountain
through the door; through the window I can see
pink of bursting red bud tree; then, I know
I have earned the strategy of prayer.
