Small Prayer

by BETTY ADCOCK

We see this ground as if through a spaceship’s faceted metal eye. Having seen the blue round as small as a child’s ball, having solved just enough of mystery to be lost in what we think we know. We’ve thought to play with it, to make the planet smaller yet.

Now we do with it what we will, forgetting how its vastness left us speechless, worshipping. We lose forest and furrow where we began. And the kindred animals have begun to leave. The water’s gone that married time and loved the stone into a canyon’s grace. We’ve forgotten how to stay — how to say: this place.

Let the earth grow large enough again that only clouds and stories can encircle it entire. Let rockets land for good, satellites fall dumb, and wires unspan enough that distances grow wide to dwarf our wars. May mystery loom large enough again to answer prayers and keep us.

illustration by CONSTANCE PAPPALARDO