Hannah - On Prayer

The priests tell us that prayer is like an ocean.
We throw our hopes into it.
Collective, powerful,
controlled by the greater powers that be,
it crashes tirelessly against the rock that is God and slowly, gradually (one hopes),
the rock yields.

Elkanah tells me that prayer is like a river.
It’s hard to skip a stone; don’t try.
Let go of your hopes,
let them sink.
Slowly, gradually, the rough edges will round
and your hopes become river rocks:
different, but easier to hold.

For me, prayer is neither
ocean nor river.
It is a drop of water
in a secret pool
and it ripples every time.