Prayer

Dear Lord, when I was ten I started to question you & turned to rocks. They came from Secret Creek. That’s what I called the dark gully behind my house, where what seemed like a thousand birds sang at once. I stored my rocks in a shoe box lined with velvet. Quartz was my favorite because of its magnificent glow, so I kept it on my nightstand & put away my Virgin Mary lamp. Dear Lord, I have believed in a rabbit’s foot, tarot cards, the I Ching, & a Magic 8 Ball. Also Phyllis Diller & Camus. & you again, dear Lord, then didn’t then did, & it goes on like that, like a sacred Möbius strip or a Heraclitean yo-yo. Dear Lord, my friend has new tumors in her stomach. She almost died trying to kill the first tumors with surgery & chemo, & it worked then didn’t. Dear Lord, sometimes I think tears are God. Not self-pitying tears but tears from Secret Creek. Dear Lord, I appreciate living. I stop & smell the wisteria. Dear Lord, you did a good job with the wisteria. Dear Lord, my friend is a singer, she sang for you. She rubbed talcum powder into her thighs, under her nylons because she sweat onstage. Dear Lord, some talc contains asbestos. Mothers rubbed it on their babies. Dear Lord, lots of times we don’t know what we’re doing. Forgive me, but is it the same for you? Dear Lord, I’m concerned, overall, about your holy purposes: demagogues & nuclear codes, for example. Dying, Jesus sweat great drops of blood. Camus said, Live to the point of tears, but couldn’t we be tender without so much pain? Lord, dear God, have mercy.