Prayer Before Icefall
Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget.
Lord, I reckon I’m not much just by myself, I fail to do a lot of things I ought to do.
You never watched your father play when you were growing up, but you heard he was good. He won some things. Generations had come before you in this room, too. Walls painted over and shelves scratched with wear. Every day, passing by banners and trophies engraved with words that do less to inspire but more to invoke: a win, a loss, again and again. There are chances to start over until time runs out of patience. I am bone-tired and aching as I walk through another metal-smooth door, but I must remember—you are a part of a story that we want to be ours.
But Lord, when trails are steep and passes high,
Help me ride it straight the whole way through.
My head clears when I walk far enough, skate long enough to feel alive. Year-over-year seasons change, bitter. So close yet never close enough. Friends from home talk about games like they are discreet events that happen on their own, like play cannot also be something secondary to breathing. Like there is an existence outside of the game. I live in the moment while my desires live outside of myself, which is how I think memory works. There are dreams I cannot phrase in words and desires I cannot touch with my hands, but I would like to believe they can be real when I see those blades touch the ice. Exhausted sighs and bruises attaining a traceable source: memory entwined with geography. Allow me to lie so that I can hold desire’s metallic taste in my mouth for a moment longer.
And when in the falling dusk I get that final call,
I do not care how many flowers they send,
When all we think about are numbers, I wish it were something more abstract. Yes, when the sun sets earlier and earlier on this side of the world, we are only left with numbers—a forced measurement onto what is supposed to be here. What else is there to do when we show up for each other every night, and yet, our remaining moments are bound to reduce to ash. Maybe we are losing hope/ time/ potential/ ourselves (interchange as needed), but love will never leave. Love is good enough—then so are you. Which is to say, we gain distance with each setting sun but love is here all the while.
Above all else, the happiest trail would be
For YOU to say to me, “Let’s ride, My Friend”
At this point of no return, let me give a face to God. We are standing with our backs against this wall that we convince ourselves is impenetrable. God dares us to knock it over. We fail and we laugh like it’s a sob. Misery loves company, or so they say. Our voices are rough and cracked, but we laugh it off, restless with bone-deep exhaustion. We have been alive for long enough to know what is and isn’t possible: we have seen it. God gave us animal-like instincts for a reason: we are dying to give ourselves away to something, always. I say I’m not religious, but allow us a moment of worship for the last few hours we have—sticks to the ice with unrest burning again. We are here because I have already given God, as I understand him, a face. Our history has told this story before. (We are still here.)
Amen.
still thinking about At the point of no return let me give a face to God
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