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after Danusha Laméris

 

 

Lord willing & the creek don’t rise:

A phrase strangely familiar and yet lost within the haze of time

Synonym for prayer, plea, hope, all wrapped up in an expression not necessarily endemic to us,

this supplication to the mercy of some higher hopefully benevolent being:

Inshallah; God willing; deo volente; mungu akipenda; Im Yirtzeh Hashem; ojalá; please, Lord,

please.

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& although in the end the dutiful religiosity inculcated in me as a child gave way to agnosticism,

I still know the way a prayer feels on the tongue, the shape of it on your lips,

in your heart, your lungs.

 

I still remember enough to hear lord willing and finish and the creek don’t rise.

Lord, meaning savior; willing, meaning merciful; creek, meaning catastrophe,

meaning hurricane season in New Orleans,

the flavor of a threat in the muggy air, meaning illness and death and poverty.

Meaning that sometimes the Lord ain’t willing and the creek does rise.