Wednesday Night’s Poetry prompt was Space, Stars, Sky. 

At 3am it clicked.

—— To Night’s Prayer. 

I pray for you to consume my assumptions of how we each witness the stars. 

My God, I mean just look at them, the stars. 

Because of them I wonder…

I wonder how their wonder couldn’t light your world aflame. I question everything because I have stood dumbstruck within a single endless night. 

And now, I pause to ponder perilously about my people. 

The people. Our people. 

Now, I beg. Forgive us. Forgive me. 

This extended space between us should have given us room to grow. We should be blossoming from the absence forced upon us all. We could be connecting to ourselves in spite of the divides that have driven distance between our fragile fingertips. 

We could be looking above us to the wonder of the stars. We could be gazing out across an endless heavenly horizon with hope in our heads. Happy in our humanity. Wishing to be nearer to the light of one another we so claim to crave right now. 

Stop. 

Just stop for a second and study the sky. 

Consider how infinitesimal WE are. 

Consider this speck standing in this time and place leaving little to no trace of existence.

OR 

Continue to Forget our fleeting lives and forge on like only one opinion carries the weight of all the worlds we will never know.

How lonely must we continue to be before we finally realize we are all we each have. 

But for a breath, 

Give me enough life to see that I am nothing more and nothing less. 

But for a breath, allow me the wisdom to know you exist beyond my ability to know you. 

But for a breath, give me pause to love infinitely in spite of my feckless humanity. 

But for a breath, force me to be better than my fear of that I have never glimpsed.

Teach me to never assume you do not wonder. Tell me I do not know you well enough to hear your heart. Burn the light of your star into any doubt I might form against you. Forge my disregard into daring and push me to love.

Infinitely and absolutely love, in a way that can only be called otherworldly.

God, how I wail for more right now. Fill my world with the marvel of knowing more souls who imagine. Overflow my ability to be thankful in the humanity that surrounds me. Humble me against the prowess of the people I am blessed to explore. Let me love as fully as humanly possible by meeting as many humans as possible. Grant me the ability to connect deeply and see beyond the minute life that was thrust upon me. 

For this life will last no longer than a breath. 

For any of us. 

YOU are the stars carving out magnitudes of meaning amidst the nothing. You are the awe that shimmers like the sun against the dead of night.  You are the space between the worlds we’ve built amidst ourselves. 

You are the star I have yet to discover. 

Dare I dream with you all. Dare I hope for us all. Dare I reach for you all. 

I pray this tonight over all our names. 

All humans,

The stars.

Susie Reynolds Reece