Poetry by Kelly Jadon: “prayer tongue” + “hidden”

prayer tongue

by darkness’s carefully concealed cloak
concisely, deliberately
they came for us
without world’s watching
for the men
who mothered another tongue

behind bailless bars
wishing, wailing
withering and
waiting
each line of footfallen feet in formation
for death’s bullet to the head

my minutes minute
i knelt
upon filth’s furtive floor
to petition, to pray, as priests propose
taught in tender times
when gardens grew green
and olives oiled early lamps
within worship’s wallish wellspring
where incense swung
heavenward
drifting above eastern domes

wage-worked
reverence reared
outside church hall
children
even my children
chased and chewed chickpeas
yet immature, yet green upon the branch
even these
the reverend, the priest
could not provincially protect

my lips lingered at Christ’s cross,
at Stephen’s cause
“Father,
forgive them,
for they know not
what they do”
my lips’ language languished
as Greek

Πατέρας,
συγχωρέστε τους
γιατί δεν ξέρουν
ό, τι κάνουν

before cell’s barabbas bars
a guarded guard
guide to a last supper
forgone
slowing, listening, uncontinuing
his maternal tongue
as my solemn solicitation
he, by birth a Greek
me, by new birth, in Greek
nothing impossible

not chance
not fate
for these with guns and death and fear
from tongue-tied, war-torn ravages
learning giving as given

i alone left to home
to the Orthodox church
and language
which helped preserve my life
and lived to glorify God
because of His conviction
“how can we kill
this man
who even now
prays for us?”

hidden

 my brother and I were whisked away by gun gushing soldier salutes we remaining remnants coming from galilee’s guard Branch’s boyhood boundary where hunger hewed and gnats did gnaw inside sleepless pillowrestlessness just up the wind-walked hill from virgin’s well

death lay silent as ravaged village bodies pits piled ditches dug prepared as hidden unholy earth concealed clutchings we placed we prayed we covered faces, friends, feet never to smile, nor sing nor kiss us again

head’s hair curled scalp-tight crusader-marooned by birth by fear by foe trauma-turned frost-white overnight never again to see its hidden hue