Image credit: StockPhotosArt/Shutterstock.com

And is it now
Too late to pray?
As children we rehearsed the verse
In ancient books and we hardly cared
Each word we said
It was enough to simply recite
And hope that soon the doors would open
Setting us free to play
Never mindful of what it might be
To one day need to pray
But finally kneeling at the grate
A hostage to some tragic fate
We came to pray too late

And if we spoke
Would Someone hear our voice?
We held this all in low esteem from ignorance
We played to win and never counted
On other circumstance
Believed in science and the laws of maths
And physics as our guiding lights
Never realising they might let us down
And fall away
Until nothing’s left at all but to pray
But finally here disconsolate
Before the fire of indifferent fate
We came to pray too late

But could our voice
Be somehow still heard?
As parents might at first ignore
The pleas of children who have played
And strayed to vices once implored
To leave alone
Yet mellow they yet waver at the free flowing tears
And promises to atone
Could it be that somewhere
Someone simply waits
For us to come
So finally kneeling at the grate
A love that cannot deviate says
You never pray too late.

(c ) Helen Valentina 2018