The Lost Prayer

Poet,
many years ago,
while reading something you had written,
I asked the Creator to give me your sorrows.
How I wept that day!

What the piece was, which year—
I can no longer remember.
I only remember
that back then you and I had never spoken.

Poet,
do you know why I asked for your pain?
To feel you,
to understand the language of your hurt.
I wanted to know—
which words make you stop short,
in what wounded silence you retreat,
at what moments your heart grows heavy.

Poet,
I too am no small fool—
foolish like a boy who gets the easy exam questions wrong.
So I won't say something mistaken before you,
so I won't add to your weariness,
how much I calculate, how much I think!

You gather crowds,
but when you become lonely in that very crowd,
do I sense it?
Can I touch your solitude?

The one who keeps balm for everyone's pain—
why this desperate need to know of his hurt?
What do I know!

Today as I sit to write, I wonder,
why did I ask only for your sorrow that day?
Why didn't I ask for your joy?
Oh, what a fool I am!

Poet,
what fools can do—can others do the same?

Poet, are you listening?
After suffering and suffering, growing weary and weary,
one day I will surely ask—
have I managed to become as beautiful as your writing!