Autumn’s First Prayer

We’ve seen Vega overhead,
Taking control of the night, even;
We all know about Orion by now.

Events a-swirling, so much upon us,
So much yet to be done.

It’s not so bad.
But sometimes it seems like it is.
Dare we gaze upward –
Dare we speak upward –
Dare we address that Great Gig in the Sky,
Even as the Tower burns?

To do so bespeaks the danger inherent to a direct look at that fire and at the lightning or dragon-burst that brought it forth.
But we do not look at the fire or the lightning.
We look past it.
We speak past it.
We pray past it.

We say,
“Be with us through the foggy valley on the night our fortress burns to the ground.
May we yet be protected even as all our walls crumble to dust.
Allow us to stand upright even as the stars seem to fall out of the sky.
May we cheat death by drinking it in,
May we then see all as it is.
As above, so below,
And round and round we go.

For even now, we are the water, we are the earth, we are the sky above –
And we’re even the fire, too.

Be with us, we ask, as we cross through midnight’s black pearl and conceive then the new life of new world upon new world upon new.

Hear our prayer.”