Hammer Is the Prayer

There is no consolation in the thought of God,
he said, slamming another nail

in another house another havoc had half–taken.
Grace is not consciousness, nor is it beyond.

To hell with remembrance, to hell with heaven,
hammer is the prayer of the poor and the dying.

And the wind in some lordless random comes to rest,
and all the disquieted dust within,

peace came to the hinterlands of our minds,
too remote to know, but peace nonetheless.

“Hammer Is the Prayer” from the book Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman. Copyright © 2010 by Christian Wiman. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

This poem was originally read in the On Being episode “How Does One Remember God?

Reflections