Mojdeh Stoakley – Trans Prayer [Video]

By Button Poetry

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Mojdeh Stoakley, performing at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN.

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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:02
Prayer for a trans student whom I failed to shield from being bullied.
0:09
Praise be the body,
0:11
which is the reflecting water that holds thy likeness.
0:15
Praise be.
0:17
I am thy servant and this child the son if thy wish it.
0:22
I’ve set my face towards thy cause.
0:25
I’ve turned each palm upward to carry the warmth
0:28
this son cannot carry yet, because his hands are busy
0:33
shielding his face, ears, and heart
0:35
from his birth name, hurled upon him as hail bludgeons.
0:39
I am steeped believing in the divine bounty
0:42
of this child, a vowel.
0:45
Praise be.
0:47
Praise be thy oneness.
0:50
Thy acknowledging of human form.
0:53
I am called upon to be thy ally,
0:55
recognizing thy creation of this boy, sovereign in choice.
1:02
Praise be.
1:04
I asked thee by thy name
1:06
through which the heaven was cleft asunder,
1:09
the Earth was rent in twain,
1:12
the river [trends], current a rush, the mountains were crushed,
1:15
not to withhold from me,
1:18
the breezes of thy mercy to turn this water at will.
1:23
Praise be.
1:25
Oh, Creator, neither father nor mother,
1:29
I no longer seek a gendered vision of thee,
1:33
nor to suffer me to be far removed from the shores of thine nearness.
1:39
I admit
1:41
I am the one who is sore athirst for common kindness among these children,
1:47
yet caught in the flood plain of this river boy.
1:51
Oh, my Lord, the beat, beat, beat of orphaned pronouns storming
1:55
have made mudslide of these river boy’s waters,
1:58
these living waters of thy grace.
2:02
I admit
2:04
I am but a poor teacher,
2:06
unknowing I was as storm waters eroded the soft soil into muck.
2:12
My palms attempt to cradle the soft clay.
2:18
I beseech thee.
2:20
Oh, my Lord, by thy mercy that hath surpassed the entire creation
2:25
and thy generosity that hath embraced all created things
2:28
to cause me to turn my face wholly towards damning the waters,
2:33
astorm by voices of children not yet matured,
2:36
so that this boy, river,
2:39
may settle again into stable and defined shores.
2:45
Powerful art thou to do what thou pleasest.
2:49
Praise be.
2:51
The ever-forgiving, the all-bountiful.
2:57
(applause)

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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