I Sing a New Song

The hymn has not submerged, for once,
these splintered sticks and slabs,
these boards more fit for trash,
have scarcely and trepidly held tin above,
and below escaped the thickening mud.

You have raised up and held this strength,
this salvation through this house.
From Hungarian plains may come rain,
thus the ever-threatening mud, or through it
plunge the wheels of messengers. Please come.

The satellite sits, rattles in Spanish,
preparing the way for words.
Speech intermittent, prophetic, pathetic,
curious and pushing, a chance and a promise,
"Please, take my picture now."

Sebastian, I can't pray for you.
The unknown, but you've been left on a step
just paces away from the open market,
where deliverance is offered for less than a cent.
But in spirit, these only come out in prayer.

We could whittle away time at the cave,
but I've been up all night, and trinkets might
be the least of concerns. Tim, how do
we let him into us? Into God? With nothing,
no connections, what will you grow in?

Sebastian? I have held watch for you,
I've held you when you couldn't ask or answer.
The opening in the heavens, they finally broke.
Six months old, this pressing down,
this lifting up, this tearing off, you'll never know.

In the desert, in the weight of the mud,
with faltering, foreign lip, doubtless misunderstood...
Abel could live but he is dying,
and on the tenth floor, she should die but lives.
In my presence let them know: He is.

My camera still holds the site, the little girl
with Irish hair, wide open, begging eyes.
My knees have got a list of longings, but who
must I prepare the way for? Only coming through
prayer, the one I've nothing but prayer for.