Pray

We had a lovely gentle chat today,
about being unknowingly led to pray.

“You have to put your hands together,
hold them up like this. Say thank you,
to ..a mystified look.. for the food we eat.”

My son is only four, he does not properly know
how to say the word ‘God’ or ‘Lord’ let alone know
what it means – why ever should he know?

I say to him as he shows to me,
it is just a thing you do in school,
a quiet time. A time to join in,

… but to think for yourself.

Take that time, as I used to in school
to quietly think for myself.

Quietly, calmly – every day.

It tastes insidious. Positively poisonous -

To the loving of all of life …

I tell him about all the dinosaurs, animals, the sharks,
fossils and his poster of the “Tree of Life” topped

by a man … Charles Darwin.

Are we, two-ways, drawing a child’s keen attention
across a forever riven world? So it is and so it is, all ways
given to all – ways of knowing, thinking, deeply feeling

revealing. There is no choice, in truth,
rejoicing, praising, singing …

“Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise ‘er Claude!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise ‘er Claude!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise ‘er Claude!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise ‘er Claude!”

“Claude?” I ask, but he does not know …
… he trusts, as he trusts “Bob the Builder” to be
innocent, educating, exuberant and funny, only words.

He does not know.

I explain that ‘some people’ look up to a someone -
a kind of person or man … a “god” – up in the sky.
A man who made everything, who looks down on us
and everything – and who looks after all things.

I tell him his Baba does not agree, or believe in this man,
that he does not need to worry or take it too seriously,

there is no big plan or anyone looking over,
no laws or orders from anywhere other than ourselves.

So, just take that nice quiet time

to think to yourself,

find out,

and think for yourself.

by Gareth Rosser

Thanks Gareth for permission to publish your work. You can read more of this poet’s work here:

http://www.garethrosser.com/