Prayer At Niagara

What sight! This massive altar cloth
With brilliant mobile glitter
What sound! These crashing waters yield
Hymn? Fugue? River?

What poverty of vision
Can meet this pilgrim’s needs.
Enrobe me in humility
Save me from my deeds.

Give me the hand of the Lord that laid
This torrent on the earth.
Speak – the voice of the Lord that made
Its turbulent, mighty girth.

Through catacomb, by dark, dank wall
Beneath the fall I walk.
In rubber shroud – a Trappist vowed
I cannot hear nor talk.

I stand behind the jewelled cascade
Bathed beneath this font
Cleanse my soul of stain 0 Lord
Give me the grace I want.