A Prayer

(Based on Halley's Comet by Stanley Kunitz)

Look for me, Father, on the roof,

staring upward into the darkness,

darker now, it seems, awaiting the eastern light

to rise, yet fearing, perhaps, the morrow

and the madness it brings, this strange new world,

and none to blame but ourselves, some loss

we’ve suffered, seeking it still and finding it

lacking, lost among the complexities of this life,

now sprawled on this coarse gravel bed / searching

the starry sky for answers found only in

our own smallness in the vastness of the heavens,

home to the gods and angels, weeping, too,

lying here … waiting for the world to end.