Preamble: “All the world’s a stage…”
Let me be happy, Lord.
Let me feel sad.
Just as long as my face is lined
with experience, I accept
a wrinkle or a dimple.
Let me live long, Mother.
Let me die young, Father in heaven.
May it be painful and chronic,
or let it be instantaneous,
my corpse frozen in innocence.
Let me have too much money
to know what to do with.
Let me work hard to barely
make ends meet.
Let me have no work, no food.
Let me be a nobody,
Let me doubt you, God,
asking to see your face.
Let me believe instead,
and win the holy race.
Give me your peace
or leave me roiled with angst.
Let me search my soul
and find it vacant.
Let me be full of prayer
even when you don’t hear,
or let me just accept
my fate as a player.