hear me, O Lord, from the height of
the high place, where speaking is not
necessary to hearing and hearing is
in all languages: hear me, please,
have mercy, for I have hurt people,
though I think not much and where
much never intentionally and I have
accumulated a memory (and some heavy
fantasy) guilt-ridden and as a
nonreligious person, I have no way
to assuage, relieve, or forgive
myself: I work and work to try to
redeem old wrong with present good:
but I’m not even sure my good is good
or who it’s really for: I figure I
can be forgiven, nearly;, at least,
by forgiving, that is, by understanding
that others, too, are caught up in
flurries of passion, of anger and
resentment and, my, my, jealousy and
that coincidences and unintentional
accidents of unwinding ways can’t
be foreknown: what is started here,
say, cannot be told just where to
go and can’t be halted midway and
can’t, worst, be brought
back and started over: we are not,
O You, at the great height, whoever
you are or whatever, if anything, we
are not in charge, even though we
riddle localities with plans,
schemes, too, and devices, some of
them shameful or shameless: half-guilty
in most cases, sometimes in all, we
are half-guilty, and we live in
pain but may we suffer in your cool
presence, may we weep in your surround-
ing that already has understood:
we could not walk here without our
legs, and our feet kill, our
steps however careful: if you can
send no word silently healing. I
mean if it is not proper or realistic
to send word, actual lips saying
these broken sounds, why, may we be
allowed to suppose that we can work
this stuff out the best we can and
having felt out our sins to their
deepest definitions, may we walk with
you as along a line of trees, every
now and then your clarity and warmth
shattering across our shadowed way
A.R. Ammons
master bias leaning 