Together we walk around the ICE building
with its walls a thousand miles thick
where behind smoked windows and drawn shades
they interrogate the refugees,
they work their detentions and deportations.
We walk there, and up and down the street, and we pray.
I pray toward the closed windows, toward the passersby.
God, let our spirits be softened.
Open the borders of our hearts.
You who make room in yourself
for us to come out into your spaciousness
and know the freedom of ourselves,
create space in us for each other.
Open our hearts.
We are ourselves only in each other.
Even these hard faces are mine.
Bring down the walls that imprison us
from the rest of us,
that close us in on our halved selves.
Bring us through our Red Sea.
Borderless wind, set us free.
Spirit of love, open our hearts.
—July 27, 2018