5:00 PM
FOR THE LOSSES OF THE DAY
Oh God of infinite oceans of feeling,
Would you allow my heart to break like yours?
Would you gift me with a depth of pain
Like the agony you feel over each fallen sparrow
Much less your anguish over each falling one of us?
Would you remind my calloused heart
That the measure of my heart
Is not in my successes
But rather in the deaths I deem acceptable?
Would I weep like you weep
Over friends and enemies alike?
Would you grant me that most holy gift
Of a broken and bleeding heart?
I do not wish, Oh God
To take any more captives
I seek instead
Siblings born of your blood and image
I beg oh God,
That you balance the scales of my crooked heart
Until they equalize
My own blood
With that of my neighbor’s
As the day draws towards it’s closing
Would you allow my finite heart
A glimmer of your boundless, gnawing hurt?
For to love without boundaries
Is to ache without limit
Then, Oh God
Let me arise from this suffering
And let love cover this multitude
Give me the strength of your tenderness
And remind me to hope
For to hope
Is first to have suffered
The rawest slashes
Of loving imperfect things
At the setting of the sun
Oh God,
Let my weeping rest
And my soul find solace
That you too,
Weep for the losses of this day
Photos by Kelvin Luyakha, Sacdiya Nour, Zakariye Abukar and Peter Nolon