Month: August 2025

Pretend it’s distant. Blood in the rubble.
Clothing under chunks of cement. A toy. Half a toy.
Scattered shards of mirror, showing sky.

A people being turned to dust we try not to see.
Goodness like buildings collapsed, mile after mile.
In the broken mirror a mother, wordless, gazing.

Desolation that speaks of a desolation.
A child, dazed, starving,
loved. We think they can’t see us,

humanity wasting away. A famine of decency.
Remnants of righteousness, almost buried.
A winged figure sifts through our ruins.

We don’t dare pick up the mirror.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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As if prayer is something you go to
like a place or a meeting, and not
ruin, or
                  seed.

As if prayer is something you can be in
like a room or a mood, and not
poverty, or
                   love.

As if prayer is something you do,
like speaking, and not
what happens to you, like
                  sickness, or surprise.

As if prayer is something you get up from
like a chair or a chore, and not
sex or
                  a grave.

No, let my prayer storm into me,
or digest me, or dawn in me,
from which I rise risen,
                                      scathed.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07 — 1.5MB)

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