Pater Noster Poem by Ben Gieske

Reciting my Pater Noster
at the post of my bed
was not but a Vater Unser
as so many have said.

How often we recite prayers we know
to beseech such things as rain or snow
and I do not even weiss
what is virtue or vice.

That is what for us as Kinder
in our minds still lingers.
Such habits with us still linger.
Where is the good or the beauty?
Whether she be plain or hübsch?
And how could we resist her lips?

What is it that we as Kinder
still find which with us linger.

A simple Pater Noster
will always be a Vater Unser.
We recite the prayers we know
to beseech such things as rain or snow.
It matters not that we weiss,
what may be virtue or vice.

- March 28,2008