Hail Mary, full of Grace, Mother of God, Mother of Angels, Sacred Virgin,
Knower of unknown unknowns, Arbiter of the end of the beginning:
let it be. Let it be for no man is an island and I am a Berliner.

Mother of God, stay. Stay with me, stay awhile: abide with me down by the river
under the boardwalk. Grant me the serenity to accept that it ain’t necessarily so,
that all I need is Love, a stranger in an open car.

Mother of Angels, I am a poor boy from a poor family, but on days like these, we shall never surrender; I will survive, for we are the
Champions and no man is left behind.
Fly me to the moon, and there I shall walk like an Egyptian, a long way from Tipperary.

Sacred Virgin protect me in this the shadow of the valley of death: guns to left of me,
guns to the right of me, one million, two million, as numerous as the stars in the sky,
the grains of sand and the footsteps in them.

Hail Mary, full of Grace, Mother of God, Mother of Angels, Sacred Virgin,
what’s that coming over the hill? Call me and we shall drive them into the sea,
into a town called Malice, into the windmills of my mind, into the sound of silence.

***

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash