A Prayer For Our Times - Max Reif

[Lawrence Robinson]

A Prayer For Our Times

I leap out of bed because
today is the unwritten day!
The Book of Life
is re-opening its pages!
Everything I encounter
has not happened yet!

Still dark outside.
The perking coffee I’m making
is but a waving flag
of the Present Moment,
the only moment,
that keeps changing
its costumes all day and night.

What is the now of the
news that stays news*?
Stepping outside, what
do I feel on the breeze?
I look within;
I look without.

The times are perilous.
Structure is collapsing upon itself
but the pristine redwoods and eucalyptus
on our hill haven’t heard that news yet.

The battle is pitched, the line drawn, the fight engaged
to restore sacred balance.
The wheel of Tao is turning.
The treasures that care and time have wrought—
the ones that are being looted and ransacked—
re-enshrined in their place
in every molecule of Creation!

O resilient Spirit I felt on the wind!
May you be restored to your place
as the fragile flower of human nature,
the art of civilization summoned
by righteous living: creators working
earnestly, patiently together in all their holy
diversity, equity and inclusion.

	- Max Reif