A Prayer to the One

“I have given them the glory that you gave me,
that they may be one as we are one—
I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought
to complete unity. Then the world will know that you
have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:22)

Seeking peace, I was on the island; world in turmoil,
and I, agitated, was still finding sleep
elusive. And so –

morning, still dark, I entered the prayer room, shut the door,
settled myself, to ease towards stillness;
but my mind was a cove cluttered with flotsam

where the sea came pounding, and withdrawing. You
not to be found. I went out onto the foreshore,
yielding; in pre-dawn dimness – a sickle moon,

for here, at the edge, a late spring day may dawn,
unwilling. I climbed over a bulwark of piled boulders
onto the strand, a winter chill still holding,

tide-water shivering in the breezes; out and out
the immeasurable Atlantic and in the far distance
the shapes of islands, like shadows. I walked, hoping still

that You, source and sustenance, might touch my being
to understanding. Here I could avoid the allure of traffic
out on the road, perhaps suppress those iterating whispers

under familiar skies. . .but I could not avoid
the images of opulence in that far-off white
mansion where, in the Oval office with its fool’s gold,

the schoolyard bully, bottom of the class, hunched –
in expanding ego – at the Resolute desk, scrawls his signature,
creepy lines, like a concertinaed serpent, ‘executive orders’

for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, designing mischief
on the poor and the oppressed…but oh! Just One, I cannot
bear it. Listen! those are the cries of gull and guillemot,

a harsh and natural music, beautiful. . . I shrugged
my defeated spirit deeper into my coat, tried again
to find the stillness deep within. Mercy, I prayed,

on this ageing flesh still stirring, sighing, Divine Breath,
before You, the long-loved beach stretching in a sweet
delaying curve before me, gullies and streamlets crossing

from the sandy-banks to the sea. I stood, listening
to the soothing irregular breaking of the waves;
in the distant barking of a small dog, the bleating of sheep

on the heather slopes of the mountain, I would discern
Your voice; Divine One, I would hold You in a heart of love
but I am fickle as the froth on the wind-swept waves.

I know that You, Merciful One, were watching
me, slight and insignificant figure
as I moved along the beach, under the immensity
of sky and sea and mountain range;

I was enthralled by the flight of a tern
out over the sea, small gracious bird, its deadly
arrow-flash of white into the sea,
then flight again, a small life squirming

in its blood-red bill. Gentle One, I have prayed,
pleaded, begged, for the children of Gaza,
for the mothers, for the ragged
unhoused families, with nowhere left to run,

and I have wept, as if You are not listening.
See, here, by the cliffs, the Cathedral Rocks
have collapsed upon themselves, arches and columns
crashed like the rugged faith of old, but this

is in the nature of a cosmic compulsion: the ruins lie,
washed by the waves
and crustaceans cover them; but in Gaza,
Israel’s steel-souled cruelty has razed the homes

of the innocent and guilty, a bloody devastation
I thought that we, begotten
of light, had left to the darkness of ages,
this pillage and razing, for the war thunder has been

raking through the psalms, obliterating
the Song of Songs. Forgive me – but ours is an age
of a self-seeking brutality, and I cannot
bear it. You saw how I knelt on the sand, a stench

lifting where I knelt, there were flies, their backs
an emerald incandescence, buzzing noisily
on the manifold kelp and seaweeds rotting in the long
staggering line that marks high tide. I made a poem once,

and wrote: let the children play, but now I see
so many, eyes dead, they bleed, they root –
with the dogs, amongst the rubble; I thought of the Child,
who fled from an earlier and more inept Herod

into Egypt. Let the children play, let them breathe
with the sea-thrift blooming on the cliff ledge, but let us not
forget the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
I cannot – Gentle One – I cannot bear it.

III

I watched a while, out over the wild and bewildering
Atlantic; on the horizon the islands
rose clearer in the brightening day, and out beyond
our world, the vast and incomprehensible cosmos – and we,
specks of dust, innumerable; where I stood, here
by the cliffs – there is a high bank of sand and sward
eroded by the centuries, guarding the secret graves
of the stillborn and unbaptized, children whose eyes
never opened on a world that had rejected them; Elohim,
we are, before our birth, a nothingness, waiting
in some ocean of pre-existence, waiting til we are washed,
at last, into life; we grow through our deeps and shallows,
suffer the little deaths, and are swept back into silence,
bearing our fardels of being and grace, part of it, portion
of the wholeness, for You will gather all things
into Yourself and nothing will have been lost.

I walked on, more slowly, the sun being risen;
now I had reached the cliffs, gazed up in awe

at those dark, commanding faces. At their feet, somewhat
daunted, I felt alone in the world, the world alone in me;

I would empty my mind of sorrows, into the salt purity
of the air, where I am but one grace-note in the symphony

of growth around me, seeking to discern
that still small voice within the works of love. Then

I remembered that out there, beyond the islands,
there is another predator, part of it, too: the suave

Kremlin vampire, accused of war crimes, crimes
against humanity; I see him glide, bat-like, through those

high doors of fool’s gold, pugnacious, dwarfed in being
by his greed for domination, thug and ageless backyard bully. . .

but again, Beloved, forgive me, I fail in patience, and beg
for the mercy You have promised us. I touched

the cold face of the cliffs, inhaled the soft breathing
of cosmos, the now of eternal You, and prayed You

hear me, in spite of sin and dust, faint-heartedness
and fear; I have wearied myself with an awareness

of the horrors of war, the suffering of the children;
oh You, who are nothing and nowhere, intimate and distant,

You who are all in all, and everywhere, Silent One –
I cannot bear it; teach me to pray, teach me trust:

Amen, amen, I cried out, oh Christ our Christ, amen.

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