Prayers

In some way, poems are prayers. So, i shouldn’t have been surprised when people responded from a prayerful part of themselves. Over the eighteen months when the Poem Catcher stood in City Hall, i was repeatedly compelled to wonder about the spiritual state of our City. Somewhere between hunger and humour, light and strong, yet tentative and skeptical; i have included a sampling of both the evidently reverent and those entries that seemed flippant at best. People often, at a certain stage of our lives, make fun of things that are in fact too tender, too precious, too fragile to approach directly. Sometimes, we tease to cover pain and bitter loss, or to poke a toe out the door of expressing our deepest hurts and longings.

And little boys tease little girls.

So sometimes, maybe we feel we must tease Deity, lest we be overwhelmed by feelings of reverence, fear, anguish, love and longing.

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Visionary

Speak to this

World – with one

Voice, as loud as

Love …

Carve your poems

From moonlight,

We the poets

We the visionaries.

Listen long, the sun

Calls out to us,

May we wrap our

Hands around this

Broken world.

With silent prayer,

Our hearts fiery

With love, to sing

These songs

From above.

– Ryan Baier, Sept 2011

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Today is a celebration of sorts

Jack Schultz shared his story

of living under Clairview Bridge

finally finding some support

to transition from homelessness

to housed: reality – there is need

such great need to end despair

where addictions rule where, perhaps,

all are housed, all are respected

and “Welcomed Home” once and for all.

AMEN.

Rev A. Brooks

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Lived here 56 years

Don’t wanna die here!!!

-Lonely Guy

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I want

I want money, I want riches

I want a nice car

I want a nice home

I want new clothes

And most of all peace.

Love, friendship is what

I really want.

– Jasmine Sutherland

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I want a son.

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Lakota Instructions for Living

Friend, do it this way – that is,

whatever you do in life,

do the very best you can

with both your heart and mind.

And if you do it that way,

the Power of the Universe

will come to your assistance,

if your heart and mind are in unity.

When one sits in the Hoop of the People,

one must be responsible because

all of Creation is related.

And the hurt of one is the hurt of all.

And the honour of one is the honour of all.

And everything we do effects everything in the universe.

If you do it that way – that is,

if you truly join your heart and mind

as one – whatever you ask for,

that’s the way it’s going to be.

– Passed down from White Buffalo Calf Woman, via LJC

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to be strong as one

and continue

to be

strong as one

amen

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Creator,

Please, grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot

Change, the courage to change

The things I can, and the

Wisdom to do and know

The difference.

-hye hye-

– Melissa Bullshields

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Jan 8, 2012

I pray the Lord watches over and guides our city leaders and all our government officials in Ottawa to give them wisdom for governing our cities and country. IN JESUS NAME, Amen.  – Diana

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Change within and see the world anew!

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May the Lord Almighty be praised.

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may we all be free to go peacefully in our sleep

and not be chained to the ‘beep beep.’

Ode to Juan D.

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Munyoung Kim

Hi – Feb 1, 2012

Please give luck to me. Bye.

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I hope and pray this city hall will last forever.

– Ronald Karmi

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‘Divinity’ (Divine)

Love Thyself, thy neighbour, Creator, Mother Earth, Elders, women, children … the flyers, four-legged, two-legged, crawlers, swimmers, 4 directions, 7 ways of the wise … each goodnight, each goodmorning and all we are blessed with in between … love thy brother and sister, Mah Si Cho …

Nannaa, Tristaan, Alex ‘n’ Lee Desjarlais

Dene Tha!

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God Bless Wayne Randell!!! RIP

D.S.

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Pleaes(sic) give me good luck

I swoon to you, I come to you

I beg, I plead.

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let something happy happen

negative is bad!

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Hi! Hello! I’m awesome!

I’m cool! Give me money!

And good luck for me

And my frien K-bob.

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I want money too!

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To all affected by cancer may things become bright and your days happy.

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failure

remorse

indistinguishable

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Thank you for the poem catcher, our friends and families. Thank you for the lovely town we live in, our community and love. Thank you Edmonton for all these giving gifts! – Tallulah

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Espero pasar mi diploma de matematicas. Estoy aqui con mi amigo …

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“What a beautiful thing to discover

I am so utterly amazed

That they inherited a House that was our story of struggle.

Growing up in a family grocery store

As an early Chinese immigrant family

Who also escaped from the Communists

I saw it later as a ‘pretty-uped’ house

Any trace of our past grocery totally gone

Then what a beautiful thing to happen

A Tibetan Monk who had escaped with the

Dalai Lama after the Communist takeover

Buys it – our grocery story house!

Dad would be so very proud to know

All the good energy and good things

That this modest little store and house

That he had bought for our survival

Has generated.

This is nothing less than a spiritual blessing

Injustices and hurt we endured are being

Revisited with the power of love and grace.” – Anna M. Mah

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Dear Creator,

I know a lot of our women have come to you too soon. If it’s not too much to ask, can you please start turning them away? Because they are not there by their own choice, they were stolen from us, they need to live their lives that ended too soon. Please.

Ekôsi Maka,  A grieving brother of a stolen sister.