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A Prayer for Miracles "You miracle yearning for a miracle If you confess you were nothing from the beginning all will go well, won't it?" Keiji Haino translated from the Japanese by Alan Cummings from "Though it Went So Well" on A Death Never to be Complete, Tokuma Japan Communications, 1997. Lord, today I pray for nothing short of a miracle. I don't remember asking for a miracle before, although I might have, when I was young, requested the miracle of more toys at Christmas than the family budget could allow. Rest assured, this plea is no less ridiculous. Given the chance to wander through the aisles of the great storehouse of Your miracles, allowed to choose only one, I would deliberate at great length for so many pressing needs are at hand. I do not ask for some nebulous good like Peace On Earth, for I know that miracles are born inside individuals, seeds that bide their time, germinating only when exposed to the proper conditions, fair or foul. O Lord, the longer I contemplate it, the more preposterous this whole idea becomes. I tempt myself with the idea of a miraculous redemption of my faith, accomplished through this book of poems, no less, but I quickly dismiss the idea as too narrow; I can predict as clearly as if the seed was sprouting within me at this very moment that the miracle would wilt. I then think of an outwardly directed miracle. I try to identify an individual in need, but my mind is suddenly blank and I find that I prefer the world exactly as it is and, because there is a spite in me that I neither planted nor nurtured, I walk back to the entrance and leave Your storehouse empty handed. |
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A Prayer for Miracles David Keffer Knoxville, TN October 28, 2014 |