Prayer

       ~On retreat in Mexico, news arrives from the North

I’ve lifted my face to the great night sky, but any wonder I used to feel is gone.
And what are the songs of birds, who once brought joy? Nothing but blind

Instinct, the staking of claims: which parts of the jungle are theirs and theirs
Alone: ways to find each other over earth’s constant, low hum, fierce wind in the palms

Yesterday starting like any other, waving goodbye., lunch buckets in hands, and the crack
Crack of the gun that does not stop

And the blood

And the children who never

             *

Water, great giver and taker, help me to remember

How to cradle wonder and still bear witness to horror and grief

How to let protest and beauty share the same beats of the heart

             *

All the way from the wet, level, edge of the world
The long, long path of the rising moon

Shimmers and streams

Right to your feet and mine
No matter on which shore, which continent, we stand.

*****

Since 2012, the year of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting and the year this poem was begun, the annual number of school and other mass shootings in the United States has steadily increased. Before the end of July, 2023, the number was already over 400.

[https://abcnews.go.com/US: “US surpasses 400 mass shootings so far in 2023: National Gun Violence Website,” Bill Hutchinson, July 23, 2023.]