Opening Prayer

For wanting no more words
than the man who stuck his truck in a snowdrift,
then alone for a month, wrote notes to his wife

on every scrap of paper he could find—

For wanting to never know
more than I did as a boy,
before the wrong turns, lost
lives, black blinding snow—

For wanting an end of wanting,
no more long moments with this lone God,
who hears only what is forgot,
who folds in a thousand neglects—

A prayer to forget, forgotten.

Used by permission of the author.