Author’s Prayer (live)

Ilya Kaminsky reading Author’s Prayer live at Bowdoin College, February 2, 2006.
If I speak for the dead, I must leave
this animal of my body,
I must write the same poem over and over,
for an empty page is the white flag of their surrender.
If I speak for them, I must walk on the edge
of myself, I must live as a blind man
who runs through rooms without
touching the furniture.
Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking “What year is it?”
I can dance in my sleep and laugh
in front of the mirror.
Even sleep is a prayer, Lord,
I will praise your madness, and
in a language not mine, speak
of music that wakes us, music
in which we move. For whatever I say
is a kind of petition, and the darkest
days must I praise.

Ilya Kaminsky
Author’s Prayer was published in Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004).
Poem, copyright © 2004 by Ilya Kaminsky
Appearing on From the Fishouse with permission of the author
Audio file, copyright © 2006, From the Fishouse