"2025" / A Prayer
Unmasker of our fixed faces,
Undoer of our lazy loyalties:
Open now our unseeing fingers,
And unclench our fist-tight eyes.
The unknown night awaits--
We would welcome her dancing hands.
Whom we cannot see, only seek;
Whom we cannot claim,
Only need and love and bless:
Bear us through such dark and beautiful skies,
Upon the thermals of a new year, a new age,
So that tomorrow's promise--tonight's gift--
Empties our spirits of last year's grievances,
Unnecessary now in a world of feasts and songs,
In a world of healing and hoping. Selah.
And if, by the sun's illumining,
Swords still swing from the hands and hearts of men,
Teach us a language of liberation
That invites in the frightened and furious warrior
A relinquishing, and a turning,
And a tilling of the only sweet soil
That can feed us all.
Amen, O One. Ashe.
12/31/24
DGJ
Santa Cruz
