Prayer

Dear Someone, when this borrowed breath is stopped And the red vine curls on through later lives, Will they have cause to praise, or blame, my lot? Shall I deserve to learn, when death arrives, What now I dare not tell my pride or love — If character, or fate, kept me alive? Or is the merely asking it above The scope of any mortal right to share — A lust to know what we're not guilty of? Dear Nobody, the sense that you are there, Immovable fact beyond the reach of will, Establishes the relevance of prayer; And though I cannot call you good or ill, I whisper the unspeakable to you still.