A Single Prayer Poem by Miroslava Odalovic

A hard know to learn
How things will move before they end
How curtains fall or the masks close
Whoever has staged the face
In whatever the number of degrees
In whatever the number of acts
And whatever’s been done in pauses

A single prayer may prevent
The gun hung on an act one wall
Not to shoot at the subsequent text
All embryo episodes anticipation fright
And tragic mistakes done to deus ex machina calls
How come we didn’t know
Or an ignorance faked covered the frameworks
Closest to warm blankets of white lies
Soothing pedagogical consolations
That it’s not too late
That there’s a lot to be done
To unearth this bit of earth
And make it a fertile soil
That will not flood in my doubts

Or is it just
A silent attempt not to stage fright
Before the innocent eyes
If you hear those people telling you
There is nothing to fear
Measure their belief by the repetition
The more of them they make the more likely it is
That they are scared to death
And if you hear those telling you the end is near
Make sure they don’t ask for money
In exchange for a survivor’s kit
For who knows
It might be only the first in the row
Of the end of the world ads
And you’ll still have many more to survive

A single prayer can do
All the moves of heaven and earth
Spoken on the thresholds of broken hearts
A single prayer always there is
With or without fear on your lips