Lord be merciful to us
Our minds, our hearts, our thought
Have conceived the evil seed of arrogance
Have borne for long the fruit of greed
To bear the child of disbelief
We have said in our hearts
Our wisdom surpasses the heights of the mountains
Our knowledge drills beyond the depth of the sea
We have considered the thoughts that are blasphemy
That the divine is all that we cannot be
And strive we did, to become gods
Deities to ourselves our ego, our pride
We believed in our hearts’ deepest corners
That truth was by our own hands fashioned
That our creator was our only imagination
And we were truly masters
We like Babel’s boastful builders balked
At all who had your love as knowledge
All who bore your teachings by heart knowing little but this
That you alone are all-wise
We dismissed for own pleasure

Lord be merciful to us
The things we feel so small before
Attest to what your hands have done
When even in our perceived wisdom are thoughts
Of the sands of the seashore
Of the birds of the air
Of the beasts of the field
Even of ourselves
As merely children of fate’s hand
Not willing to give up our self pride
We know deep in our heart
That you were
You are
And you’ll forever be
But our minds so learned, blinded our sight
We saw so dimly
But now we have but for a few things destroyed ourselves
And what we have left is death crouching at our door

Lord be merciful to us
By your loving hands stretch
Save us from our ego’s dagger’s edge
Catch us from our fateful fall
Forgive our foolish arrogance
Cleanse our pride filled hearts of rot
And in your grace
Curdle us to yourself
Let us be your own
For our hands have devised things
Such as those, seeming so good
That have led us so far from truth
Farther than we have ever wished
All in a search for an alternative
Other than your merciful hands
Lord, in your graciousness
Please be merciful to us!

-Ikenna Nwachukwu