Give us our daily bread, and 

(forgive this atheist

for supplicating the universe

in the words she was as a child taught;

empiricists have so little poetry

in their communions.)

 

i find myself as tongue-tied as the moses

who refused to answer god,

my head and heart

are lost like languages in the tower of babel,

for certainly we cannot, do not

understand each other. god’s practical joke?

the true mistake of humanity, i think

was not finishing the apple.

 

 

reassuring, to remember

that the world has always been ending

don’t the mayans, and jesus, and the scientists

all say so?

a second flood awaits us,

and perhaps a dove will bring

an olive branch

for this appalled and appalling

world.

 

though you

wrap your heart in bandages

leave clear your eyes

only the righteous dead deserve blindness;

they have done their time among us,

and suffered in ways we will never have to

again, perhaps.

 

 

in the next world, we will all be

artists, scientists, explorers;

in this one, we must be builders.

bridges,

not staircases or towers

will lead us to our god.