Petitionary Prayer

They say that silence is prayer
sometimes, that attention is prayer
or can be, or music, but we grow up believing
that prayer is only asking God for things.
I live in a world in which small children
are torn apart by bombs, burned to nothing
by cigarettes dropped on couches, where
sinkholes open and swallow them whole
before they learn God’s name in any language.
Lost, they freeze to death; they fall
from the sky like rain. People shoot them or
they shoot themselves in play. You can ask
God for anything you wish. I ask only for this:
understanding, calm in the storm of my soul,
a way to believe the rules were set for ample reason, and
for eyes and heart and voice to look
to listen, maybe
someday
to sing.