My Bruised America

God bless this bruised America.
Bless those with the house you lived-in
for your whole life gone in a day.
The rivers of dirty water flooding streets,
for our floating cars, turned over boats
on buckled highways and stranded people
and cattle.

This bruised America with
wildfires wrestling with hundred year old
trees, burned rain forests. Bless the innocent
children, horses, dogs and cats, beloved
who died and the still living, greeting our return.

Now, months later, God bless those with
the houses with rooms piled with sodden
pieces of lives, photos, certificates,
mementos and sewage.  Bless those
who can never go home again
and those who would want to,
for those still asking find my Dad, please.

God help us rise up for the people still
missing, for the victims of Las Vegas,
for Texas, for all those victims of madness
with guns. And all those who will be
in the coming year.

Gods of all, of any good we choose to believe,
help us worship the miracles of clean air,
clean water. Help us be heroes with boats,
the strangers holding our families up,
the volunteers, the good neighbors.
For the next year, help us all be healers.
Most of all, God, please let us learn from
our mistakes without having to repeat them.