Dawn of Time by Metin Bereketli

PRAYER AT DUSK

by Gary Kinsey © 2005

The day is turning into night O Lord. It is dusk, a special time that you warm up with your breath before serving it in your lavender hands.

That time of the day when the earth shrinks into a silence that helps me remember.

As I listen to the water pipes ticking inside these walls, the whine of an elevator kicking up somewhere in the upper floors, and hear the tires of cars leaving the parking lot for the day, I remember the only thing that I take with me wherever I go. Your infinite memory. Amen.

It is a mysterious thing O Lord, your memory. A pinhead of a vibration without a religion.

It is something that I can't remember learning anywhere. It's a knowledge soaked in compassion. It's free. It's grace.

The knowledge that our lives on this earth is measured and short. Which makes every sunset so precious, so delicate. Baby-bottom tender.

This tenderness I wish carried to my other moments even when the sun is high up at noon.

If I lived my days with this wisdom of twilight, it would be like sitting by your fireside, right next to your knees, whole day, my Lord.

I'm a stranger in this strange world and I know that's no news to you. But I'm at home with your dusk.

Trucks are returning to garages. Mothers are wiping their hands on their aprons. The city lights are popping up here and there. The cold clouds of March are thinning out into steel grays and purple whites.

A chilly wind sways the stripped branches of maples and elms too sad for the mind to comprehend. The only solace, the only refuge is this whisper that I hear when the day melts with mercy into the night.

Amen.