Prayer

 





              PRAYER

Abba, Father, forgive us –   children adrift on this blue orb,
seeking solace in ancient mirages. . .

We plunge into the world –  into calendric little nets,
forgetting death in the vanity of our phantom days.

Triune in Love –  not an avatar, not a guru-oracle.
God of the living, not the dead, as Your Son long showed.

The mortality of creatures –  Your enemy. He wept for Lazarus’ kin.
Ordered his corpse –  to rise from the raw grave.

God, Your will! Against death –  daring with love!
Only in immortal Love does all creation sound in unison.

Only the Tree of the Cross –  the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge:
Without You, all "knowledge" –  is a temporary quantum dream.

(. . .)

The echo of this summer arose before all these sounds.
Compassion arose before all these sorrowful words.

Life –  a synonym of Love in the trials of long parting.
Death –  a walk through torment, over the abyss of menacing waves.

Give us a grain of faith!.. You hear all laments, O Lord.
Not  to command any heights, just her  heart to turn toward Your  heights!

God, Eternal Life You grant us from above with love.
What is our knowledge of stars, of time, and of fate?

Sanctify the Gift of Love in us! O Lord, I unwillingly
see what has passed but wasn’t washed away by sea water.

Blood, while still salty, beats in waves through veins, to the point of pain:
can it really be –  never, never, nevermore...

I –  about her (. . .)

And about those whose words were potion, wine, or manna:
their eyes long ago –  just flowers from the grave’s ditch.

Give rest with the saints: Boris, Marina, and Anna,
Mikhail and Osip, Edgar, Rainer, Lev. . .

(. . .)

Billions of eye sockets here measure with gazes for centuries
the land, the sea, and above –  the starry firmament.

We did not become gods. We –  mortal people and beasts.
Here, none among us –  is stronger than common death...

Father, into Your hands we send each other with hope.
Beyond the fence with the cross, beyond the grave’s pine threshold.

Here, the soul leaves the trap of the calendric circle.
With You –  the White Stone and an evergreen wreath.