Prayer for Me and Everyone

(and everyone who needs to pray this way)



O God

Our help

Help me

Keep me safe

And sane enough

For jazz

Or really

For the world

Largely indifference

But with those

As we say

(as I say)

Who’d just as soon

Cheat you

As smile at you

(who cheat you

first

by smiling

at you)

Really

Though

I need your company

And to feel it

Please

As companionship

If I may ask

Not so much

As a judge

Even though you are

And shall

And woe to me

When that business

Comes

And

Yes

I’m thinking

Like the Amish farmer

Who when asked

If saved

Replied

For all this faith

And service

I hope so



And I hope so

Though there is a world

That needs you

Even for orneriness

And even

Scorn

And hatred

For the differences

It fears

While some of us find

Difference

Interesting

And how did I evolve

This way

Conservative

Yet believing

In the prismatic way

One light becomes



Well

Help me

Lord

Please

I am too poor

Without resources

To do much

But I am I

Such as that is

And it seems

According to doctrine

And the smallest

Mustard-seed

Like

Miracles that happen

You persist

Somehow perfectly

In loving me

And keeping me



And I’d like to ask

And will

About my friends

By blood

And choice

And happenstance

And for a world

That’s cracked

And losing air

To please give everyone

A chance

And then another

We need you

In unknowing

We are a cloud of witnesses

If a stormy

One

You made

And let become

Over ages



Where is Eden now

Where are the rivers

And the perfect

Vegetation

And shall

We ever

Know such things again

As at the start

If that

The angel on assignment

Could step down

And lowering

The sword on fire

Raise the other arm

Then say

The trialing time is over

Welcome back



C L Couch





Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash