Listen to the faithful pray, Kyrie eleison,
with eyes closed, cushions under knees,
phones on silent, in pockets otherwise
empty of change (QR code offerings advised1),
fingers arranged in here’s-the-church-here’s-the-steeple
knots, eyebrows in fervent intercession. Feeble2.
Hear their deliver us from evil3 as a petition
for modest freedoms: to inhabit a nation
cushioned from the worst of what it deals
to others; the certainty of daily bread4/meals5;
that, on our side, the scales of justice tilt6;
that earth will cry out if our blood is spilled7.
But, see, we’ve grown too caustic to believe.
We plea that folks now get up from their knees.
1 The truly contactless way to give™
2 Audre Lorde: ‘They will never allow us to bring about genuine change.’
3 Biblical hermeneutics dispute this translation of ‘evil’, an abstract concept, in favour of ‘the evil
one’, possibly suggested in the original Greek. It is easier for us all to agree on an evil act, an
abstract fact, rather than a concrete actor, no?
4 In this fourth – of seven – petition of the Lord’s prayer, we have the epiousion, rendered as
‘daily’, a word occurring twice in the Bible. We have no consensus on its meaning.
5 My alternative, in the spirit of inclusion, and in the understanding that the price of a bag of
flour may be prohibitively dear in some parts.
6 The 1494 depiction of a blindfolded Lady Justice was not a celebration of her impartiality, but a
critique, a satire. Her refusal to see was not intended as a virtue. But, alas, here we are!
7 Genesis 4:10: ‘The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the soil.’
new boots and pantisocracies 