If I were in a book it would be the book
in which some lesser angel bemoans
the state of my soul
and is comforted for it
and is corrected for it
by some greater angel who knows
as the reader knows that it is not one’s soul
that suffers the indignities of ignobility:
the inability to curb the petty smallness
of spirit, ungladness in the company
of bureaucrats, anger’s decay,
in the sense that my soul itself cannot be
harmed nor tarnished though it can witness
my sorrow on finding that illness alters me
from the self I thought I’d more or less known.
What can one do about one’s nature?
I look at the spider that’s finally
restrung its great wheel away from the door.
I’d like to close the door, go away,
leaving the spider be.
I’d like to preclude the possibility
of angel, as of prey.
Prayer by Liz Waldner
