To Be Known

Claire B. Willis is a lay Buddhist chaplain ordained by Roshi Joan Halifax at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, and a graduate of the Episcopal Divinity School. She focuses on contemplative practices for end-of-life care and has worked in hospice for many years. As a student of Koshin Paley Ellison, a founding teacher at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, she coauthored Opening to Grief (Red Wheel/Weiser, 2020). Her passion is the use of poetry to rejuvenate, inspire, recover, and enlighten.

“This is the book I’ve longed for—clear-eyed poems that speak to the ravages of the heart. Written by the best poets of our time, these poems meet us in our most tender, vulnerable moments and offer the balm we need to stay open. These poems celebrate our humanness and at the same time, connect us with what is divine in and around us. Each page a gift. Each poem a prayer.” —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, author of The Unfolding and host of “The Poetic Path”

“The luminous center of To Be Known, Claire Willis’s well-curated collection, is that poems can be healing prayers. As a poet, I’ve always felt this connection in the voice, rhythms, and imagery of both. And it's reassuring to know that Willis uses these poems in her work as a clinical social worker and lay Buddhist chaplain, offering those in need and those who support them voices of care, honesty, and hope.” —Catherine Cobb Morocco, author of Moon Without Craters or Shadows

“This is a celebration of the fullness of life with its intersecting moments of awe, grief, celebration, and uncertainty; its complexities and simple pleasures; its wants and absences. Claire B. Willis has gathered in these pages a handbook of gratitude, a roadmap for kindness, and a treasure of comfort and wisdom in a diversity of poetic voices both ancestral and emerging. I can’t think of a collection the world needs more, or an occasion this book wouldn’t suit.” —Ellen Rowland, author of In Search of Lost Birds

“With this remarkable collection—this offering—Claire Willis bears witness to how a poem, like prayer, has the ability to engage and transform everything that seems most contradictory. Hope, fear, grief, joy, despair, love: the terrible and wondrous everything is held together within these pages that meet us with solace and shelter, helping us return to the world more wholehearted. I am so grateful for this book.” —Jan Richardson, author of How the Stars Get in Your Bones

“There are times when ordinary words cannot meet us in the depths of what we are living through. A death. A birth. A heartbreak. A global or personal devastation. These are the moments we turn to poetry. To Be Known is a medicine bag full of exactly those poems. They are mirrors of what is wisest and realest within us, exquisitely calibrated to remind us who we are in the moments when we most often forget. They are companions when we feel most alone. They are prayers to carry us through the darkest and brightest moments of our living and dying.” —Kim Rosen, author of Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words

“Poetry is often the medicine we need. Through global uncertainties and inward turbulence, poems can companion us, connect us to one another, give voice to what is tender or vulnerable, and remind us what is most valuable. Claire Dainin Willis’s gift is compiling such wholehearted and nourishing poems. This is a collection to treasure, share, and read over and over again.” —Koshin Paley Ellison, Zen teacher and author of Untangled

“As a hospice chaplain and trauma healing therapist, I am continually seeking language that can companion the soul through life’s most sacred thresholds. To Be Known: Poetry as Prayer is a rare and exquisite offering. This collection creates a contemplative space where poetry becomes true communion—where words do not explain away mystery but gently open us to it. It is a steady, tender companion for anyone navigating loss, love, and the great passages of being human.” —Rev. Norma J. Burton, author of Navigating Liminal Realms and Lucid Dreaming Lucid Living

“Reading these poem-prayers can breathe fresh spirit into your prayer life—even if you’ve had mixed feelings about that word prayer and all it might represent. Lean into their invitation. Let them deepen your attention to, and your engagement with, the sacred gift of your days.” —Phyllis Cole-Dai, poet/writer, co-editor of the Poetry of Presence anthologies

“When we attempt to articulate the inarticulable, or to understand the seemingly incomprehensible, poets give us words for thoughts and feelings unlike any other art form. Within this collection are my favorite poems that I carry with me at all times—on paper at the ready to offer a wordless soul in need of expression. This is a book I have been waiting for.” —Rabbi Suzanne Offit, Board Certified Chaplain specializing in suicide postvention, grief support, and palliative care

“Collecting the poems that hold us through life-shaping moments of all kinds, this book becomes a gift to all who turn to words of comfort and meaning in times of real transition. Whether celebration or grief, longing or fulfillment, these poets offer words of deep meaning that make prayer itself accessible.” —Dr. Reverend Sofia Betancourt, president, Unitarian Universalist Association

Prologue: Poetry as Prayer, Claire B. Willis
Introduction: Living the Prayer, James Crews
Invocation: The Asking Is a Prayer, Nina McLaughlin
 
1. The Liminal
The Unbroken, Rashani Réa
The Wild Iris, Louise Glück
For the Raindrop, Mirza Ghalib  
Life After Death, Laura Gilpin
blessing the boats, Lucille Clifton
The Long Boat, Stanley Kunitz
Praying, Mary Oliver
Beyond the Question, May Sarton
Travelling Light, Pádraig Ó Tuama
Praise Song, Barbara Crooker
I Grant You Refuge, Hiba Abu Nada
Think of Others, Mahmoud Darwish
Mid-Winter Grace, Angela Ephstein
What to Do, Joyce Sutphen
The Place Where We Are Right, Yehuda Amichai 
The Wild Geese, Wendell Berry
Snowy Night, Mary Oliver
Kindness, Jan Wiezorek
 
2. Radiance
Everything is Going to Be All Right, Derek Mahon
Remember, Joy Harjo
Holding the Light, Stuart Kestenbaum
There is Light Within You, Meister Eckhart
[I will not die an unlived life], Dawna Markova
Adrift, Mark Nepo
[God speaks to each of us as he makes us], Rainer Maria Rilke
Listen, Barbara Crooker
Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light, Jan Richardson
Cargo, Greg Kimura
Pandemic, Lynn Ungar
[I read about a woman], Mary Lou Kownacki
Because These Failures Are My Job, Alison Luterman
This is Enough, James Crews
A Blessing, Brian Baker
The Work of Happiness, May Sarton
 
  3. To Be Known
Blessing for the Morning Light, David Whyte
Questions Before Dark, Jeanne Lohmann
Late Fragment, Raymond Carver
Love After Love, Derek Walcott
Saint Francis and the Sow, Galway Kinnell
The Healing Time, Pesha Gertler
The Saddest Thing, Julia Fehrenbacher 
Birdwings, Rumi
Annunciation, Marie Howe
Fear, Author Unknown
Just for the Record, Dale A. Lombardi
Take Off Your Shoes, John Roedel
Poem Without an End, Yehuda Amichai
The Layers, Stanley Kunitz
Prayer, Galway Kinnell
Eagle Poem, Joy Harjo
Prayer, Kevin Hart
The Cure, Albert Huffstickler
Concerning That Prayer I Cannot Make, Jane Mead
Sabbaths 2001: VI [Sit and be still], Wendell Berry
How to Be a Poet (to remind myself), Wendell Berry
[Quiet friend who has come so far,] Rainer Maria Rilke
If You Knew, Ellen Bass
Small Kindnesses, Danusha Laméris
The Most Important Thing, Julia Fehrenbacher
Eternity, Jason Shinder
Mud-Puddling, James Crews
The Moment, Laura Gilpin
Champion the Enemy’s Need, Kim Stafford
Those Winter Sundays, Robert Hayden
  
4. Faith
Summons, Aurora Levins Morales
In Praise Of, Moudi Sbeity     
Praise What Comes, Jeanne Lohmann
The Facts of Life, Pádraig Ó Tuama   
Instructions on Not Giving Up, Ada Limón
The Thing Is, Ellen Bass
Island, Langston Hughes
The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry
Good Hope, Benjamin Zephaniah
[You darkness, of whom I am born –], Rainer Maria Rilke
little prayer, Danez Smith 
The Just, Jorge Luis Borges
Kindness, Naomi Shihab Nye
i thank You God for most this amazing, E. E. Cummings
[We set the pace.], Rainer Maria Rilke 
Gate A-4, Naomi Shihab Nye 
For Someone Who Did You Wrong, John O’Donohue
How to Write a Poem Now, Frida Westford
Santos, New Mexico, May Sarton
Buffalo Run Towards the Storm, Moudi Sbeity
Hope and Love, Jane Hirshfield 
 
  5. Trust
A Short Testament, Anne Porter
At Every Turn, Mark Nepo
Do You Believe in God? [Though I’ve lost God, God is], Pádraig Ó Tuama
Bodhisattva, Moudi Sbeity     
Animal Grace, Gloria Heffernan
Sacred Wine, Greg Kimura
Pray for Peace, Ellen Bass
Prayer in the Shadow, Robert Monson
One Word Prayer, Ellen Rowland
Travel Tickets, Samih al-Qasim
Shoulders, Naomi Shihab Nye
Thank You, Ross Gay
If, Imitiaz Dharker
We Love What We Have, Mosab Abu Toha
Generous Assumptions, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Blessing for the Brokenhearted, Jan Richardson
Hallelujah Anyway, Moudi Sbeity
A Prayer of Peace, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
  
Acknowledgments
About the Poets
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