Prayer Poem by Arundhathi Subramaniam

May things stay the way they are

in the simplest place you know.



May the shuttered windows

keep the air as cool as bottled jasmine.

May you never forget to listen

to the crumpled whisper of sheets

that mould themselves to your sleeping form.

May the pillows always be silvered

with cat-down and the muted percussion

of a lover's breath.

May the murmur of the wall clock

continue to decree that your providence

run ten minutes slow.



May nothing be disturbed

in the simplest place you know

for it is here in the foetal hush

that blueprints dissolve

and poems begin,

and faith spreads like the hum of crickets,

faith in a time

when maps shall fade,

nostalgia cease

and the vigil end.