A Prayer Before Daybreak

God,

In the field at the crossroads

The sunflowers hang their blackened heads.

Can You hear it?

Cold rain beats on the roof

And drums on the gutters,

Sharing dire tidings,

“The worst is yet to come.”

I slump down,

Like a spent candle, sputtering,

As the dregs of night hem me round.

I wait for daybreak,

For the miracle,

For the call to arms,

For the bugle call

That will marshal armies and convert disappointments

Into victors’ crowns.

I wait for You. 

But when

Sigh, At last!

You come to me

Through the encircling dark

Your glad face is strange,

And Your beloved voice says

Unexpected things.

Your call is not to arms

Nor to triumphal marches,

But to this:

Rejoice.

And when I will not hear

You say again

Cheer up! Set down your sorrow and your rage for

Riotous, soul-rippling, dark-defying laughter,

Like a child tossed into the air,

Careless of peril, who cries Again! Again!

And I confess: I don’t understand. Not at all.

Are You offering me a platitude?

A sugared sweetness so I won’t choke on the gall?

Or can it be that joy hides strength I have not known:

Oxygen for the flame, helium for the deflated soul.

Unfog my senses, my Jesus,

To feel, see, hear You are at hand,

Like the springtime encroaching on a cold day

When the trees put forth their furled pink buds.

Let no one carry away my attention

From the light, where it flickers, barely, but still.

Let no disaster tie weights around my feet

To keep me from following the next small circle of light

through the shadows.

You know each aching, wanting place.

You know each thing that’s not yet right.

Settle upon me Your rest

Set a watchman on the walls of my heart.

O Lord, in Your mercy,

Teach me to know that the day will break

And teach me to laugh

When it has not yet broken.