Prayer Language

We are to add est and eth to every verb, a tradition
leftover from a time when the words 
meant dearest, love of my life.  Now, 
they are meant to make the language holy 
(sacred, not secret), set apart 
like a sabbath. Thou art. Apparently, I shouldn’t love you 
the same way I love gelato or the call 
of a chickadee on a lonely afternoon,
as if they weren’t the same thing.
At church, children and newcomers
talk to you straight out, not yet suspecting
how strange this sounds to us long-time worshippers, 
how exciting. Once they realize, they blush and stutter,
adding letters indiscriminately. 
I’m done with it. 
It’s like wearing boxing gloves for our thumb-matches, God, 
and I won’t have it. Thou art puts you in the sky somewhere,
and the sky is only half the story. You
are my hero and my nemesis and everything
in between. You are my heartbeat
and distant drums, my breath 
and the glamours squabble of aspen and spruce
on the mountainside. You abide 
like the sequels of blockbusters, all of them
with you in the title: “Return of.” “Revenge of.”
You are subject and object, rain and blood. 
Darling.

Darlene Young is author of the poetry collection Homespun and Angel Feathers and teaches writing at Brigham Young University.