285 - A Sabbath Prayer

A Sabbath Prayer
By Tom Disch

Workers of the world, untie
your shoelaces, slip off
your Nikes, think how this breeze,
if you'd agreed to go
to Florida, might have been
Hurricane Andrew but is not,
as you are not serial killers
nor candidates for high office.

Today there is nothing
in any newspaper directly
threatening your lives.
Sarajevo and Somalia are only
answers to questions
on Jeopardy. You can play the game
in your own living room
while your wives are baking meatloafs
and somewhere in a sunny meadow
a cow browses in alfalfa,
unable to imagine
how meatloafs are made.

For what we are about to receive,
O Lord, make us truly thankful.

Tom Disch is the author of seven collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Dark Verses and Light (1991). His latest novel is The M.D.: A Horror Story (1992).