Our Father

A hand, or the shadow of a hand,

passes over.  The wind, you’d think,

or the way some sad, benevolent god

might stroke the hovering raven,

of all creation his favorite jewel.

So now the hollyhocks shake their hankies

and the dog looks up, abased

by domestication, while the minions

of aridity suffer from their thorns and scales,

singing world without love, amen.

You’d think the raven’s rosiny squawk

was complaint, an oiled curmudgeonly bell.

You’d think a decent god would

allow a man to love another man.

You’d think there was no place like hell

but earth, awash in its armies

and damned to believe in nothing

so much as dollars and death, the economies

of raven and of man—one who flies,

one who tries and tries to pray.