<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Prayer for Words</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class="">My voice restore for me.</i></div><div class=""><span style="font-style: normal; font-size: 14px;" class="">Navajo</span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Here is the wind bending the reeds westward,</div><div class="">The patchwork of morning on gray moraine:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Had I words I could tell of origin,</div><div class="">Of God’s hands bloody with birth at first light,</div><div class="">Of my thin squeals in the heat of his breath,</div><div class="">Of the taste of being, the bitterness,</div><div class="">And scents of camas root and chokecherries.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And, God, if my mute heart expresses me,</div><div class="">I am the rolling thunder and the bursts</div><div class="">Of torrents upon rock, the whispering</div><div class="">Of old leaves, the silence of deep canyons.</div><div class="">I am the rattle of mortality.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I could tell of the splintered sun. I could</div><div class="">Articulate the night sky, had I words.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- N. Scott Momaday</div></div></body></html>