Saturday Prayer

God, I am packing my heart-lunch
with the smiles of the morning –

the enthusiastic beagle crotch-licking
the window hanging ramshackle
until I fix the cords,
the outrage of simultaneous
acne and wrinkles,
the breeze that brings birdsong
with a hint of skunk,
the raccoon at the bird feeder,
an adolescent wild turkey strutting
unaware it’s being watched,
similar adolescent humans,
an online joke
I’ve seen three times this week
and still chuckle,
the first amazing aster.

I will need these smiles to be hospitable
to folks who have so many tears,
or are hedgehog
with disassociated angers.

Help me treasure smiles so deeply
they rise above my mask
to make a small lacy fan around my eyes –

for the sake of all I meet,
and for me. Amen.

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Maren C. Tirabassi’s forthcoming book will be Christmas Eve at the Epsom Circle McDonald’s and Other Poems and she blogs at http://giftsinopenands@wordpress.com/ She’s a UCC, US, pastor and a writer and lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Teaching her inner-Eeyore to smile is her life-work. Thanks for the photographic laughter of Rev. Dr. Fran Bogle.
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