Poetry Friday

Equinox Prayer

- Katie Ford Hall

Just for today,

the message read,

let whatever you

do be enough.

Yes, I thought,

 just for today

Let me sit here

Listening  to the

crickets chirping

under the porch

well into

the afternoon

watch the tiny black birds

pressing  their

airplane bodies

against

the dome of

a puffy

gray sky

let me feel the

cool wind soothe

my hungry skin

just today,

when

day equals night

let me love the way

the feathers

of wild grass rise up

to  meet the

fading trees that are

on their way down

let me not even notice

that edge by the swing set

the one that needs to be

trimmed, 

which

will remind me of

my kids

at school --

of my daughter who struggles

with math,

of the inadequate college

funds 

and of the

burning down

world I’ll

someday leave

in their hands.

Let me not think

about the scorched earth

and starving babies,

Endless wars

or the damage

I’ve done to my

body and soul

The damages even scars can

barely contain.

just for today 

let me remember

day equals night

and it all fits together

in a way that blurs and  

sways hypnotically

across the length of my porch

carried by the  

cool westerly breeze

Yes, let me see just

that

just today

not what’s missing

what I have done

what I have failed to do

and who

is not by my side