Prayer - Marvin Blaustein

[Larry Robinson]

Prayer

                                                                                         
	Tonight...instead of trying to talk to You in my bed,
	I talk to You with my pen...a Psalm perhaps.
		I ask for what I ask for every night:
		Heal my heart and let me not be crazy,
          	and give me strength to live a good life.
		This is a small man's simple wish.

		Like on other nights, I do not know if You are there.
		I do not know if You hear me. 
		It has been said by sages that You talk to men.
		I have not heard Your voice, I do not think.
		But yet....I know there is a You,
		by what You have made:
		by the stars and the grasses in the marshes.
		How You grow flowers and trees
		and by how they breathe.
		By how Your perfumes fill the woods
		and by the more than myriads of intricacies
		Your hand has crafted.

		Maybe then, for me in some small way
		We have heard each other.
		If this is so, I cannot say.

		And now I end this with the end
           	of the Bedtime Shema:*
“Stand in awe and sin not.
           	Commune with  your own heart
           	upon your bed and be still.
                     		   Selah” *       

	- Marvin Blaustein                            

  *Shema is a Hebrew Prayer
   *Selah; forever