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| mesopotamian pottery incantation bowl, circa 7th c. |
prayer/spell
the words spin round the bowl, a spiral curse:
an incantation written for one house,
a text to save the house from idol, wrack,
a demon’s evil eye: upon a plinth
it rests, the people it was meant to save
from harm now dust themselves, but it achieves
a silent chime, the same I hear from far
away, inscribed in Farsi on canvas
brushed in black ink: gesture involuted,
echoic, nested close enough that each
repeated Sufi verse becomes a patch,
a bit of fabric stitching up a text
or map: a world made out of words, except
this spell is called a prayer: o flimsy script
o dry inkstone o unfamiliar
o my brush let inchoate letters make
of letters, stem and curve and dot, a plea
an orison: exceeds the edge and fades
into the wall, the paint, whitens to light:
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| siah armajani, 'prayer' (1962) at the Walker Art Center |
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