It may not matter if anyone’s there
on the other end of prayer
or its reverse, a curse.
Things must be said
to the whole universe
whether it listens or cares.
I speak to myself,
and the world overhears.
How many pleas and complaints
launched at heaven, since sky seemed
the right direction for god, fly into space
searching forever for the right address?
Perhaps they are caught at the edge of atmosphere
in orbit, collecting into cloudy masses over millennia
and will eventually fall back to earth, raining
the apocalypse madmen yearn for,
fanatics prophesied and prayed for.
Something in many of us
longs to prostrate itself,
surrender everything,
to lick the floor
and find it good.
Some have stiffer necks,
won’t take their eyes off the magician
at the pulpit or the path to the door.
Even when mumbling to the Muse,
I pray, “tell me what to do,”
and use silence as my excuse.
