The Praying Mantis At My Window    a rhyming sestina in iambic pentameter       A tangled web, delapidated, gray,    beyond all thought of occupation, no    one lives among the strands. A place to pray    perhaps in pensive, quiet whispers, low    amid the sounds of spiders gone away.    A home for one with nowhere else to go.       I had a place myself some time ago    like that: uninsulated, ceiling gray,    the pipes exposed, the paint had flaked away,    uncovering a dingy rainbow, no    more colorful than dirt. Your head bent low    in your abode, you are about to pray       they say, if it is but a stance to pray.    I see you come alone, I see you go,    and ev'rything you've captured high and low.    Your home is open, secrets mine, the gray    misunderstanding of this world has no    importance here. Ashamed, I look away,       a window separates us. "Not this way,"    were I the sort, the words that I would pray.    I do not think that you are praying. No    mere prayer can offer succor where you go.    Nor mantra nor a rosary with gray    unyielding beads and silver cross swings low       enough to reach the insect world. Too low,    too green your chitin, much too far away    from God, triangular your head, and gray    your eyes, too wicked I presume to pray.    Too gruesome is your appetite to go    to Heaven's golden table. It is no       exaggeration saying God has no    intent for Hell if not for you, a low    point in creation. Each of us must go    along our path. Your sacreligious way    alarms the saints and mocks the faithful. Pray,    when black is split from white, you're lost in gray       on Judgment Day. I like the way you go    about it: pray for gray, don't feel too low,    just getting by, a trick I also know.