<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><h1 style="line-height: 1.625rem; margin: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); widows: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><font size="4" style="font-weight: normal;" class="">Wild Common Prayer</font></h1><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: normal; widows: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 1.4375rem; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); widows: 1; text-align: justify; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">I dreamt you were whole again, radiant, calm: your hair still golden but<br class="">tinged with red — a halo of rosy, burnished light — and your hands<br class="">untrembling in your lap. I was surprised to find you home. <em class="">But I’ve been here<br class="">all along</em>, you said. Or might have said. You didn’t speak. You’d only aged<br class="">as women age whose bodies ease them toward death; grown softer, more<br class="">yourself. And I was the one who stood amazed, there in the kitchen where<br class="">we’d spent so many quiet mornings, friend. Wanting to touch you, wanting<br class="">to simply not forsake you now. Outside, the pasture lay down calmly; each<br class="">blade shimmered in the wind. <em class="">This is eternity</em>, I thought, and felt you breaking<br class="">into all your lovely fragments as I woke.</p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Natasha Trethewy</div></body></html>