A Little Girl's Prayer
Grant me the moment, the lovely moment
That I may lean forth to see
The other buds, the other blooms,
The other leaves on the tree:
That I may take into my bosom
The breeze that is like his brother,
But stiller, lighter, whose faint laughter
Exhoes the joy of the other.
Above on the blue and white cloud-spaces
There are small clouds at play.
I watch their remote, mysterious play-time
In the other far-away.
Grant I may hear the small birds singing
the song that the silence knows...
(The Light and the Shadow whisper together,
The lovely moment grows,
Ripples into the air like water
Away and away without sound,
And the little girl gets up from her praying
On the cold ground)
To God The Father
To the little, pitiful God I make my prayer,
The God with the long grey beard
And flowing robe fastened with a hempen girdle
Who sits nodding and muttering on the all-too-big throne
of Heaven.
What a long, long time, dear God, since you set the
stars in their places,
Girded the earth with the sea, and invented the day and
night.
And longer the time since you looked through the blue
window of Heaven
To see your children at play in a garden....
Now we are all stronger than you and wiser and more
arrogant,
In swift procession we pass you by.
"Who is that marionette nodding and muttering
On the all-too-big throne of Heaven?
Come down from your place, Grey Beard,
We have had enough of your play-acting!"
It is centuries since I believed in you,
But to-day my need of you has come back.
I want no rose-coloured future,
No books of learning, no protestations and denials--
I am sick of this ugly scramble,
I am tired of being pulled about--
O God, I want to sit on your knees
On the all-too-big throne of Heaven,
And fall asleep with my hands tangled in your grey
beard.
