If You Pray

If you pray because
you believe it will
change the earth,
don't waste this
precious breath.
If you pray because
your mind is at war
with the way things are,
then solve your mind,
not the world.
But if you pray because
a bruised defiant bud
breaks open inside you,
these razor-sweet petals,
this mad fragrance
unquenchable, then pray
for me, friend.
I exist because
you are here.
In all this green lovely
wounded world,
you have entered my
aloneness.
I need you from afar.



Photo: Ricardo Dacunha