Prayer

by Michael Bugeja
excerpts from Talk
University of Arkansas Press
1998

for my surviving children

Your missing siblings also bear your names,
The only hand-me-downs: no broken toys,
Loose corduroys, coats. No abandoned bikes,
Balls, dolls or roller skates. You have angels:

The time will come when you will run with them
In heaven as you did on earth. The mown
Grass is greener there and dew-pearled at noon.
Trees climb like ladders and no top limbs snap.

As they have, forgive me my trespasses:
The late-night bickering with your mother,
The unfair time-outs and too-sharp rebukes
At the table. Absence at the table.

May they lead you out of temptation and
Deliver you from evil: the open
Door, the closed pool, the small and plastic part,
The large and desperate women and men

About whom I have warned you so often.
Pray for them, too, my children. Remember:
There is no kingdom, power or glory
Greater than love here now and forever.