A Father’s Prayer

I imagine you in the haze of
a languid lombok day
burning your skin like
chaffing chili powder
sprinkled by malicious nymphs
that navigate the nusantara

The dry scratch of burn-off
tickling your lungs with
nanoparticles of toxic plastic
paleys tormenting your flesh
filthy foreign fractals
attacking your alveoli 

and my heart bleeds

I picture you catching a choke
just before it escapes
swallowing your fate
deep into your holy heels
balanced by the refocus of
squinting predawn eyes

With breath bracing your chest
for another drill of battle
you trudge the ceramic sea
to a spring of ablution
preparing yourself for
the next round of mindless
pentameter rhythms

The rites keep you sane as all
else makes little sense in a cycle of
anxious survival you’ve
forgotten why you’re here
 

and my heart bleeds today

Yet beneath the crust of
conditioned conformity
simmer secret rituals of
the mind collecting treasures
of the observable as you
build an altar in the noetic

icons of daring divinity
exceed the alleged radiance
lackluster fakey Fridays
where imams spin protests
‘sok religius’
sok sok indeed

if only they knew

Still your wisdom will grow
by the undetectable drip
that taps a different beat
they need not hearken yet
dynamic vital refrains in
philanthropic octaves

My gravity slices the tide
defying all resistance
flouting the distance
these prayers add mist
a precipitation that
one day shall hydrate
your now austere wilderness

and my soul rejoices
in your tomorrows

{* Lombok is both the name of an island and means “hot” in the native Sasak language of the people of the island. Nusantara  means ‘archipelago’. Sok can be translated loosely here as “proudly”}