Prayer for Himalayan Bees
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Karen An-hwei Lee. From Phyla of Joy. Tupelo Press, 2012.
Image, a journal of creative works “that grapple with the mystery at the heart of religious faith,” describes Karen An-hwei Lee this way: “As a poet, Lee takes the reading of scripture in unexpected directions. She plays. She finds strange echoes. She riffs. She takes us by surprise. […] Part confession, part exhortation, Lee’s work offers us new points of entry into long-loved passages of scripture, by dramatizing the dance between very old language and a very modern mind.” Phyla of Joy, for instance, includes a number of prayers on potentially unexpected topics: on famine caused by rare synchronous flowering of bamboo, the nuptial flights of ants, or this prayer for Himalayan bees.