Ode To Victor Hugo-88 'les Misérables' prayer Poem by Freeyad Ibrahim

Prayer

By Freeyad Ibrahim

They pray.
To whom?
To God.

To pray to God-what does it mean?
Does there exist an Infinity outside ourselves?
Is that infinity One, immanent and permanent,
necessarily having substance, since He is infinite
and if He lacked matter He would be limited, necessarily possessing intelligence since He is infinite and,
lacking intelligence, He would be in that sense finite.
Does this Infinity inspire in us the idea of essence,
While to ourselves we can only attribute the idea of existence?
In other words,
is He not the whole of which we are but the part?
At the same time, if there is infinity outside us,
is there not infinity within us?
Are not these two infinities (a horrifying plural!) superimposed
One upon the other,
and is not the second infinity so to speak subjugated to the first, its mirror and its echo, an abyss that is concentric with another abyss?
Is it not also intelligent?
Does it not think, love and desire?
If both infinities are intelligent, then each has in principle
a Will, and there is an I in the higher infinity
Just as there is in the lower
That lower I is the soul,
And the higher I is God.
To establish in the mind a contact between the higher
and the lower Infinities, this is to pray.

FRYAD HUGO