Poems and Prayers (for the domestically inclined)

My Lady's Chamber, Frontispiece to "The House Beautiful"

Peace

Peace between neighbours,

Peace between kindred,

Peace between lovers,
In the love of the King of life.

Peace between person and person
Peace between wife and husband,
Peace between woman and children,
The peace of Christ above all peace.
From Carmina Gadelica

Dusting

by Marylin Nelson
Thank you for these tiny
particles of ocean salt,
pearl-necklace viruses,
winged protozoans:
for the infinite,
intricate shapes
of submicroscopic
living things.
For algae spores
and fungus spores,
bonded by vital
mutual genetic cooperation,
spreading their
inseparable lives
from equator to pole.
My hand, my arm,
make sweeping circles.
Dust climbs the ladder of light.
For this infernal, endless chore,
for these eternal seeds of rain:
Thank you. For dust.

On the Disadvantages of Central Heating

by Amy Clampitt

cold nights on the farm, a sock-shod
stove-warmed flatiron slid under
the covers, mornings a damascene-
sealed bizarrerie of fernwork
decades ago now

waking in northwest London, tea
brought up steaming, a Peak Frean
biscuit alongside to be nibbled
as blue gas leaps up singing
decades ago now

damp sheets in Dorset, fog-hung
habitat of bronchitis, of long
hot soaks in the bathtub, of nothing
quite drying out till next summer:
delicious to think of

hassocks pulled in close, toasting-
forks held to coal-glow, strong-minded
small boys and big eager sheepdogs
muscling in on bookish profundities
now quite forgotten

the farmhouse long sold, old friends
dead or lost track of, what's salvaged
is this vivid diminuendo, unfogged
by mere affect, the perishing residue
of pure sensation

Prayer for Home Blessing

By Dolores Curran
Bless our home, and make it fit for Thee, Oh God. Send your Holy Spirit into each nook and cranny. Let the walls resound with love and laughter. Let your birds sing on your trees outside and your lilies flourish in your gardens. Bless our kitchen and fill it with the warmth of shared bread. Bless our family room and fill it with loving communication. Bless our bedrooms and fill them with restful slumber . Bless each room and each of us, dear God, and make yourself at home with us.