David Ignatow's conumdrum

Here is the poem:

I believe in stillness,

I close a door

and surrender myself to a wall

and converse

with it and ask it

to bless me.

The wall is silent.

I speak to it,

blessing myself.
..................

This is profound to me. I never read a poem like this. I was praying way back when I was young, when I wasnt sure of anything, just to be on the safe side. But my praying kept evolving. But I kept it under wraps. It was just my business, what passed between me and the loving intelligence that created me. (At first I thought the love pouring through me was from Mother Nature until I realized that Nature was also the recipient of this steadily streaming love.) The ability or need to pray wasnt a club for me, it was just an open line. It was always open. But it was the Irish who taught me to bless how to bless. In the poem, the wall is a metaphor. I think this poem is as much about writing a poem (as the antidote to silence), as it is about forcing a poem. So what he gets is a kind of echo of his yearning for a poem, which would be a blessing. What he gets is a conundrum a nonblessing, but a good poem.