A Prayer

Among the notes of a forgotten school

This notebook, with its faded pages,

Survived moves and various life changes

In a hidden-away nook,

Ready upon a night, on a cursory look

To be taken up as a useful tool.

 

It’s been years since those urges

Have made a necessity paper,

Of pen and ink, of a faint taper

Winding words and thoughts

And inklings of plans and plots

Until, at last, the word surges.

 

Fiat lux, the god of this world said,

Although, fiat sermo would do just as well,

Our word-addled world creeping towards a clarion bell

Of meaning in a dry land,

Upon monuments made out of shifting sand

Where, if you just wait, everything is all ahead.

 

I will swell a scene or two, and hope to do more.

Hamlet needs retainers, for he is not all.

The meaning wraps us, into a dying fall.

An essay on man may be beyond me, should I try

To fashion a philosophy on which to lie

On this far abandoned shore.

 

All is adrift, all is unkempt.

In these latter days we rely on our own devices.

We are to make sacrifices

Out of beggaring necessity. But don’t fear;

Unlooked for, the salvation is near,

Even though it has a hint of contempt.

 

Ialdabaoth, give me power

As our earth tumbles into a ditch

To, with careful attention, stitch

This fallen world into a quilt,

Riven though it is with death and guilt,

To build it up to a sturdy tower.