My prayers have been answered, if they were prayers. I live. br I'm alive, and even in rather good health, I believe. br If I'd quit smoking I might live to be a hundred. br Truly this is astonishing, after the poverty and pain, br The suffering. Who would have thought that petty br Endurance could achieve so much? br And prayers -- br Were they prayers? Always I was adamant br In my irreligion, and had good reason to be. br Yet prayer is not, I see in old age now, br A matter of doctrine or discipline, but rather br A movement of the natural human mind br Bereft of its place among the animals, the other br Animals. I prayed. Then on paper I wrote br Some of the words I said, which are these poems.