Lord, if you exist and have ears
(neither of which
proposition is entirely clear yet),
let’s make a deal.
(I know prayers ideally aren’t
supposed to involve bargaining,
but this is really a poem
so I’ve got some wiggle room to niggle.)
Bring a little peace to these instruments
who call themselves your kids,
and I swear by all things you deem holy
(since you made everything,
I guess that’d be the whole shebang)
to give myself up to your wills and won’ts.
Of course you’ll have to clue me in
where there’s a Will,
(the won’ts are pretty well covered)
whether buried in endless musts
thrust thus by musty books,
or hidden in plain-sighted laws
governing the broadest range of spirals
from when the first shoot knows
it’s time to poke its budding nose
above an earth that’s lost the frosty bite
to when our yellow dwarf explodes
and grows a giant with nebulous arms
stretching outward to catch its dying breath.
(I’d cast a vote for the latter,
but my still-small voice has long been
to the far reaches, outnumbered.)