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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">December 7<sup>th</sup>
Prayer</div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">Like a distressed baby,
</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">crying in an empty
room,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">I used to pray.</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">Now I just wait
expectantly</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">till clarity comes,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">often vexing me
greatly</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">with what it has to
say,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">as if daring me to
stare at the sun.</p>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">Or, slowly cooking a thick
slab of puzzlement,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">avoiding all recipes’
tedium,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">I keep turning and
turning</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">till I get a well-seared
response</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">to a question that
refuses to leave.</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">Sometimes I’m like a
clumsy country doctor,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">vainly trying to pin
down a persistent pain’s true cause,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">poking and prodding,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">ineptly seeking to
know what’s up,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">only to find that
what’s not up</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">is what I ought to
seek.</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">Amazed that the head
on collision of one sperm and one egg,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">in the fierce run up
to Hiroshima and Nagasaki,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">led to the odd duck
who bears my name,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">I am lately bemused
by the wondrous strangeness of it all,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">and regret, ever so
slightly, that no one can hear me when,</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">my solitary heart
wishing that it were not so, </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;">I yearn to say,
“Thanks for all this blessing.”</p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Bill Dickinson</p>
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