A Prayer for Maureen Stapleton
"Oh, baby, never, ever forget how magical life can be, or is about to be. Open your eyes, open your heart. Things are coming."
That glorious afternoon, a pink and gray sunset ("Shades of Edna St. Vincent Millay!"), and a visit to St. Louis Cathedral, "Louie's Place," he called it, and a prayer for his friend, the "old shoe," Maureen Stapleton.
We had eaten at The Court of Two Sisters, and we walked over to St. Louis Cathedral. The air in the Quarter had that salad of smells, a psychic patchouli of burnt sugar, a myriad of perfumes, and that particular odor that is emitted by the Mississippi River. ("It's a nice river," Tenn said.)
"I love this view," he had said. "I love to turn the corner and to see this place, where I have been received in so many ways."
We entered the cathedral, dark and warm and filled with the scent of candle wax. Tenn paused, waited, dreamed a little, then began a furtive church for a place to sit, to pray, to think.
(The following is from Follies of God.)
We finally
found a pew, fifth from the altar, in the center of the Cathedral, and we sat,
or rather I sat, and Tenn fell to his knees. He lowered his head to begin his
prayer, but paused, turned to me and said “Write this down. I want you to take
this to Maureen.”
I pulled out my blue book and pen and waited.
In a few seconds Tenn began to pray aloud.
“I found my voice, which is to say my salvation, in the
dark, with a radio, or the voices of neighbors, and a pure hatred in my heart,
and a prayer that I would be transported. I pray that you and others who dream,
in a literal and a spiritual darkness, are transported, and I pray, and I know,
that they will, on the other side of a stage or a backyard fence or on the
farthest reaches of understanding, find a listener, some recognition, some
feeling of usefulness.
“We wait here, Jesus, in a confluence of
crises for voices to rise up. I pray that the fears that cripple the young
eventually force them to walk when they can find no other progress; when their
only movement is purely emotional, I pray that their artistic limbs will take
them to people hungry for what they’ve observed, on the sidelines, silent and
seeing.
“I pray that the world will always want a
story to be told, and I pray that they will always be able to trust themselves
and others strongly enough to hear and accept what others have experienced,
lived through, and strained to turn into art that can be subsumed by the
willing.
“I pray that we will care to be big--of
heart, of soul, of pocket, of industry, of daring--to magnify who and what we
are through whatever means we have. In art, in living, in being. This is a
great undertaking; it has value; it has saved so many; it is dying, but it is
always in the process of dying, and is always rescued by those who recognize
its frailty, its grandeur, and its necessity. Our greatness often lies in saving
something that will be of use to souls unknown to us.”
“I pray that this boy finds these women,
these struggling, wonderful agents of change and creation, and learns to not
only dream (the common house cat may have dreams that would embarrass Michelangelo)
but to love and to apply and to give and to matter.
“I pray that I have mattered to some, that
I will matter again. I offer this candle to Maureen in the belief that its
light will serve primarily to remind her that she, more than so many, has loved,
applied, given, and mattered.
“I am, God help us all, a writer, and I
have nothing else but my voice, for which I offer up to my enduringly patient
God, my heartfelt thanks.
“Amen.”
Tenn sat upright, leaned into me,
exhausted, and sighed. We both looked at the altar, bathed in a lovely amber
light and focused on the inscription ECCE PANIS ANGELORUM. The bread of the
angels.
Today, on Tenn's birthday, I offered candles and prayers to him and to Maureen, both of whom loved, applied, gave, and mattered.
There's an incredible atmosphere around that Cathedral, don't you think? I don't think Tenn was the only one who funked up that scene, let me tell you. There are visions and portents in there. Portents! Leave it to a cathedral to get me to a poetic shore. Maureen Stapleton
Comments
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comments. The moderators will try to respond to you within 24 hours.