Praying Lessons Poem by David Kowalczyk

Lift not your prayers
skyward. Beg not favor
from any who claim heaven
is not here and now.


Sky gods have yet to hear,
much less answer, the prayers
of those burned at the stake
during the Spanish Inquisition.


Go, instead, to the nearest graveyard.
Go while rain or snow choke the air,
and the sky is small and timid and gray.


Pray, eyes downcast, to the god of muck
and earthworms, the god of ragged pants
and shoeless souls.


Saturn, god of common sense,
transformer of gold into lead,
of spirit into matter.


A god less romantic but
infinitely more pragmatic
than Zeus, Zoroaster, or Vishnu.


Saturn, father of earth, child
of the sky, recognizes the most holy
in the most profane.


'As below, so above.'