Poem of Protection

Oh Mighty God, Father of the Sun Moon, Earth and Stars,
Please protect and keep Joan Alison Baker-Jones,
mother of mothers, sprung from the womb of
Josephine Joan Baker, child descendent from Your Heaven.
Dwells she in a yellow house-
first in Litchfield, then in Springfield, now in Bloomington-
always yellow-
let the petal color of the coreopsis protect her brood.
Let the sundit drops of water from the lakes and rivers round
(Lake Bloomington to the North, Wabash River to the East, Lake Clinton to the South,
Mackinaw River to the West)
rise up and fill the ransnowial clouds as protection from life-altering blazes.
Protect her from the maples that guard our house,
one in front and one in back,
whose rain-engorged branches she fears will crash upon our residence.
Hold back the bulbanious wind that blows insanity into her mind.
Protect her nimble sewing fingers from the nibbles of the poo
fy squirrels and raccoons who are hand-fed peanuts by her crazy-
nut neighbors and who steal our cat food.
Watch that her coronary valve does not fill with cloggation,
so she will not die of an infarction.
Protect Joan Alison Baker-Jones’s oculars as she views your most glorious of words and
generous of creations
so this lover of snowflakes in streetlight and
trillium in springlight and
her sparkling Saturn in sunlight and
our visiting opossum, Gertie, in porchlight
will never know the pain of eye ulcers or retinopathy
as her mother did before her.
(Side note, though important- protect her baby of cats-Ruby Petunia Jones-
from the mammoth she thinks lives in the ceiling fan.
For if Joan Alison Baker-Jones arrived home from a narcus crushing day at
The Farm, it would kill her to find out that her darling fuzz ball had had
an aneurism and been carried away to the Elysian Fields
on account of a completely cat-batty and imaginary fear of pterodactyl resembling cooling
devices.)
Smooth and seal her epidermis-too many times it has been slathered in iodine and oil and burnt
by Uriel’s orb—
keep it clear of calcumpating, flesh consuming abrasions.
Oh Mighty Protect(her), bless her with the cherry tree buds and
keep her safe and free from the dalific duties that come from the eternal purple excrement
caused by robins and the mulberry tree.
As she walks in Mackinaw Nature Preserve,
protect her smellary senser from the odors of the vicious Skunk Cabbage and the dreaded Dandelion,
instead grace her steps with peace and joy and flank the path with
Dutchmen’s Breeches, Lady’s Slippers and Shooting Stars, for in them
she finds great relaxation through You.
(Also keep those turtles away from her. They really freak her out!)
Protect her from the heartbreak and sadness that comes so easily in this life.
Protect her from her greatest fears and mine.
Protect her by protecting me, and bless her days
with sunshine and chocolate cake.
Amen.

Rachael Jones