Mark-Making and Prayer

In love, I speak many words as small prayers. They describe in their distance from the romantic weather that soaks and dries us both, all the unspeakable things I wish love could be.
In painting there are marks that serve a similar purpose. Describing in their distance from the guileless marks made before them the type of mark I would make in this spot if I were going to make a mark on the painting I have been imagining.
Sometimes prayer is foisted on a mark. By changing the marks around it, it is hollowed of any original value and made to serve as prayer. This is an impressively violent way of making marks. If thorough, it makes subsequent marks appear to have been prayed for. When the violence is through, I am relieved to find I am someone for whom prayers are answered.

There are also sentimental marks, they comfort me by recalling past marks on paintings whose redemption is already secured.