Papers have headlined
& the airwaves reported
events of last week..

Lord, this time
like many others You seem conspicuous
by your seeming absence

or is it always that
we are absent from
ourselves in such
vast numbers
you cannot make it
to all the sheep
before nightfall?
or, did you know
the events before hand
in the vast immediacy
of this universe
of yours as it travels
the speed of light
experiencing no time,
leaving that & sorrow
to our own devices,
allowing dark evils
their own course?

I don’t believe this is true..

were their Guardian Angels
napping? or taking
time out for a celestial dram?
or were they waylaid
by some other faraway pity?

or the next County?
do Angels make mistakes? & if not
how could they have watched? or,
very pointedly, who held them back?

I do not accept
an abstract drivel
about the all and everything,
in the natural course of events,
this instance being related
to cause and effect and destiny
or a hippies notion of Karma

so, this is laid at Your feet
for an answer
& as these words are written
they do seem to wheel and come back,
& bite me & maybe
an answer

in the flippant
careless thoughts and words
absently  let out
in an inattentive air
leaving gaps
in our guard
& good sense–allowing
evil its course, daily
or  something on the other side to push it on us
because every day, we forget to love..

every day…