“Word I had no one left but God” (Robert Frost, “Bereft”)¹ 

“Send To God” a child printed in crayon
on the address line of the card slipped
into the prayer collection box,
unlocked street door, foyer
of the downtown church,

its message board in capital letters
welcoming little children
to the kingdom of Heaven.
One word on the “Pray For . . .”
side of the card: Me.

No question of course
the card would arrive,
be read and answered:
“Unless you become
as a little child . . . ,”

your mail will be displaced,
lost in the snow drifts
of yesteryear²; in the rain
submerging hands, palms
open for mercy;

in the heat of desert dunes,
sparse grace evaporated;
and in the gloom of night,³
darkness denying light,
despair of grownups,

couriers buckling under
their bags weighted down
with what cannot be forgotten,
forgiven, their lifetime
loop of appointed rounds,

the conscriptive nostalgia
of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony,
4th Movement, its seductive
beauty, what child would
choose to dance to,

jumping for joy,
holding out for God?

Notes

*Matthew 18: 3; Mark 10: 15, The Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966.

¹The Road Not Taken: A Selection of Robert Frost’s Poems, Henry Holt and Company, 1985, p. 163.

²“But where are the snows of yesteryear?” (Mais où sont les neiges d’anten?) from François Villon’s medieval French ballade Testament.

³Echoes of the unofficial motto of the United States Postal Service (USPS).