Prayer

Prayer

Carla Funk

Let me be a vessel
carrying the vintage
from your cellar,
that low-doored, narrow room
built well beyond the palace.

While those above me
lift a revelry of silver cloches,
flutter white napkins
at long and laden tables,
and kiss their fingers to the air
in exaltation, down here, I’ll swill
the lark and the garden,
the wind and seed,
the current pulling earth,
the moon and starry host—
this bright drink magnificent with time,
and incandescent, spill
as I go, weaving in the streetlight shadows,
tipsy with the splendour.

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Carla Funk
Poet & Author

Carla was born and raised in Vanderhoof, the geographical centre of British Columbia and one of the earliest Mennonite settlements in the province. Though she left Vanderhoof after high school and has lived on Vancouver Island ever since, she still returns in her writing to her childhood hometown, her family, those long Sunday sermons, and the rumble of her father’s logging truck coming down the drive. She wrote a recently-released memoir called Mennonite Valley Girl.

Photography by Dylan Leagh