The Prayer

There is not much I can say about this poem ahead of the reading, other than half an apology for posting something so intensely personal, and a whole apology for the somewhat convoluted phrasing of it.

As to the first, I needed to write it, and I also need to print it. And perhaps it will speak to others who have also been forced to test the far limits of truth and belief. As to the second, it would not have been written at all if I had not allowed the phrasing to exist simply as it came. There are those times, as any poet will probably attest!

So here it is.

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Did you promise peace, a benediction?
Asked I aught but there would be a waking
When the nightmare's at its worst, its darkest?
Make the dying cease and still the weeping;
Let there be at last an end to anguish;
Grant us peace past pain and grief and terror. 

None of them can say I fled the battle;
You alone know best I did not falter,
That I faced the fears and would not waver.
You know best how cold my heart and weary,
How the daylight darkened in the heavens
When no crying came but a strange sternness.
Still I waited for the peace at daybreak.

Is it much to ask there be a dawning?
That there be an end as a beginning?
That a god should save instead of crushing
One whom others doomed to die forever?
This was not your judgment but their power;
Still, the saving lies within your honor,
In the oaths you've sworn across the eons
That there be a waking from the darkness.