Prayer

Creator, welder of flesh and bone,
as I passed among the rough-cast crowd
I considered your conception,
I considered that you might be proud.

I considered in each separate face,
in each different limb, the distortion,
I considered among the numbers
how you forged each proportion,

how each individual shape
was overturned in your mind,
how no hand or eye was left uncast,
how no form was left undesigned,

how crookedness and grace, how the good
and the disfigured were combined,
how the irony of your thoughts
is expressed in the cut of mankind.

I considered among the numbers
how beauty and perfection were sought
and then by your ruthless hand
returned again to the melting pot.

Creator, welder of flesh and bone,
consider this human heart,
consider the poverty
and meanness of my rough-hewed art,

consider the prolific nature
of your everlasting wealth,
and release me from the vice of time,
release me from the iron of myself.

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