National Poetry Month: Maurice Manning

"A Blasphemy"

Maurice Manning

You wouldn't have believed it, how

the man, a little touched perhaps,

set his hands together and prayed

for happiness, yet not his own;

he meant his people, by which he meant

not people really, but trees and cows,

the dirty horses, dogs, the fox

who lived at the back of his place with her kits,

and the very night who settled down

to rock his place to sleep, the place

he tried so hard to tend he found

he mended fences in his sleep.

He said to the you above, who, let's

be honest, doesn't say too much,

I need you now up there to give

my people happiness, you let

them smile and know the reason; hear

my prayer, Old Yam. The you who's you

might laugh at that, and I agree,

it's funny to make a prayer like that,

the down-home words and yonder reach

of what he said; and calling God

the Elder Sweet Potato, shucks,

that's pretty funny, and kind of sad.

Maurice Manning's 2010 book of poems, A Common Man, was one of the finalists for this year's Pulitzer Prize.