Prayer at Solstice
By Dana Gioia
Blessed is the road that keeps us homeless.
Blessed is the mountain that blocks our way.
Blessed are hunger and thirst, loneliness and all forms of desire.
Blessed is the labor that exhausts us without end.
Blessed are the night and the darkness that blinds us.
Blessed is the cold that teaches us to feel.
Blessed are the cat, the child, the cricket, and the crow.
Blessed is the hawk devouring the hare.
Blessed are the saint and the sinner who redeem each other.
Blessed are the dead, calm in their perfection.
Blessed is the pain that humbles us.
Blessed is the distance that bars our joy.
Blessed is this shortest day that makes us long for light.
Blessed is the love that in losing we discover.
Dana Gioia was born in Hawthorne, California, on December 24, 1950. He received a BA from Stanford University. Before returning to Stanford to earn an MBA, he completed an MA in comparative literature at Harvard University, where he studied with the poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Fitzgerald. In 1977, Gioia moved to New York to begin a career in business. For fifteen years Gioia worked as a businessman, eventually becoming a vice president of General Foods. In 1992, after publishing his first book of poetry, Daily Horoscope (Graywolf Press), in 1986, he left business to become a full-time writer.
Blessed is the poem that doesn't go on too long.
(Blessed most among these perhaps is the sonnet?)
Blessed is the poem that actually says something.
Blessed is the poem that blesses the reader.
Blessed is the poem that blesses the writer.
Blessed is the poem that blesses us all.