The First Days

Ever since my youth,

I prayed to God in the morning.

 

The early hours of my day was devoted to him.

In his time,

I would listen to his silence,

Listen into his silence.

 

When he was with me,

A drop was enough.

A stranger's smile

meant a mile of hope.

 

I praised God each day,

lit up a light for each day of the week.

I praised God for my tender mind.

I praised God for the torchlight of his soul.

 

Then the darkness came.

The darkness asked me to go deep into the darkness,

to go far from my family,

to go away from those close and dear.

 

I could barely see any stars.

All the hours were as still as dolls.

 

II.

The leaves are changing color, preparing

Themselves

for the ceremonial shudder of Winter.

It's something of a wonder

how they achieve their faded bloom

before.

 

Saturday, I pass by the cemetery

where my friend died.

Many years, I shed tears

but now

my sadness can hold nothing more...

It tips, breaking

drops of whatever's left has stolen into a swell.

 

Why is it so hard for me, my Lord?

you who were with me in the Darkness

can only see

how I suffer in trying to fit into this world?

Why is is the righteous say nothing?

The wind runs through the leaves

making them shudder.

It's the sound of applause fleeing.

Why is it so hard for me to love this world?

Did not those hands

create this Life?

 

You ask me to be three times more righteous

than others?

It's not so easy.

I become dark in being myself.

 

III.

In the morning, I pray to God.

I know that he is there and he hears my prayer.

He whispers rights and wrongs to me.

 

The leaves scatter:

the leaves are like open hands

which wish to close themselves

with something they cannot grasp?

They clutch and grab,

turning brown before they are swept away

into a corner

by the brush of the wind.

 

You know my voice.