Prayer in a Hospital Room by Veronica Suarez
Tonight, stars blink, tell tales
of a full moon apocalypse,
and in the silence, I can hear
the fears of the city echoing
though the birds are chirping,
and a toad hops on the granite.
I don’t believe we’re on the brink
of extinction: the only thing ending
is ignorance of climate change,
and what is emerging is a collective
consciousness of our fragility
in the chaos of the cosmos.
It’s almost a black-eyed moon
as I hold this frangipani
between my fingers, and I
look up at a night sky
spilled with dying stars.
I found the frangipani
on the pavement
scattered on the ground
underneath a tree blooming
with pink aching blossoms.
This spring, the butterflies abound
in the garden, and last I heard,
Earth is healing its ozone hole
while the humans are in hiding:
there is always a balance
even in the midst of calamity.
Tonight, on the fourth floor
of a hospital room in Miami,
nurses from the Pacific Islands
pray for the patients suffering
from the respiratory illness
known as coronavirus: it’s true
that even in the midst of pain,
there is grace, even in the midst
of darkness, there is God,
waiting in the rain
waiting in the dark matter
of outer space, in a black hole,
in a red star, in the May moon,
there is God, waiting on a wooden
chair of the fourth floor of a
hospital room as the nurses
breathe prayers, risk their lives
for strangers: in the midst
of this pain, there is God.
