Some minister once facetiously defined four types of prayer: Thanks, Gimme, Wow, and Oops.  Sometimes, though,  sixty-somethings need a different sort of prayer to get them through the night.

Hope

Old spirit, in and beyond me,                          

keep, and extend me. Amid strangers,

friends, great trees and big seas breaking,

let love move me.  Let me hear the whole music,

see clear, reach deep.  Open me to find due words,

that I may shape them to ploughshares of my makeing.   

After such luck, however late, give me to give to

the oldest dance…Then to good sleep

and -if it happens- glad waking.

Philip Booth

Let evening come

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving

up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needles

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned

in the long grass.  Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down.  Let the shed

go black inside. Let eveing come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop

in the oats, to air in the lung

let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t

be afraid.  God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

Jane Kenyon

Categories: observations