Prayer Poem by Khaled Juma

Dear Lord,
Please, forgive their visions, and let them hear the vulture's apology to its prey, lest they think you made some, killers, and some, killed. Lay in their hearts a blue morning star, to show them the course of laughs in the wind of sea, adorn their dreams with the meaning of life, so they know that you are the creator of beauty, too. Sprinkle their roads with diamonds of your words, so they break the walls in their souls and fly to you washed like air in the rain.
Dear Lord,
At the beat of sins, in a valley only eminent from rapture by an illusion, I stand, naked of all hate, flooding with love. The honey of your grace drips over my body, and creatures smile. Like your power taught me, I forgive sinners in routs of ignorance and roads of knowledge. I look under my feet lest I block the way of ants. I look up at your sky to thank you for a star that embraced my heart with illumination, I kneel before you, for you taught me how to fill the chalice of love, and pour it in the grieving river, turning its stream into a rhythm, and its water, into a mother's touch on the head of a lonely orphan.
Dear Lord,
I know your wisdom in creating pain.
They don't.

Translated from Arabic by Nida Awine