Prayer

What can I do? Pray?

Sadness - immense and vast.

Silence is dense and gray.

The skyline is overcast

with sadness. It swells and bursts

and overflows the drains.

Silence can’t quench my thirst, -

sadness alone remains.

I drink it with slow sips.

My eyelids are tightly shut.

Sadness – a kiss on the lips -

my tongue is blistering hot.

Teardrops are glistening,

uncontrollable. I can’t stop.

God, are You listening?!

Listen, God!

My hands - reaching high

to somehow narrow the breach,

to pull down the sky,

which appears out of reach.

Should I attend church

climb to the steeple’s top,

bridge the gap and emerge

from clouds (woken up

from a dream in a daze)

wet and newly baptized?

I’d like to study His face

as He stares at my eyes.

Stop her from leaving me!

Goodness, deceive me not!

God, are You seeing me?!

See me, God!

All alone. Lights dimmed.

She’s no longer here.

What could I tell Him

now, if He didn’t hear

then? What could I tell Him

now, if He couldn’t discern

my voice in a choral hymn

then, when I sang for her?

Prayers are far-fetched.

My fingers - nearly detached.

My arms are outstretched;

His are too far to latch onto.