Small Insurrection

5976 miles away, John tucked my prayer into the Wailing Wall. 

If I really believed in God's omnipresence, 

I would not have handed him the scroll.

I would know that my prayer is heard here, 

in my soggy front yard, in the tiled hallways of my school, 

walking down to Stone Oven, sitting by the huge oak tree, 

in my bed  each night before I go to sleep.

But, honestly, I feel better knowing where it is, 

who has held it --as if John's ordained hand 

tucking it into the holy hole will somehow summon 

some greater power than God, 

the higher power that God leans into when God is sad, 

alone, lost as I know He must sometimes be. 

I feel better knowing that it is on the man's side of the wall, 

not because men have more pull or say, but because now 

it is a rebel prayer.  The pink paper, the twine, 

the feminine print in that strong wall 

where men have rocked and worried. 

The words ask for my love to find me, so that I can 

know love again, feel love again, learn through love again, 

fulfilling what God asks us to do, living as God lives. 

A woman asking for a woman, 

delivered by a preacher to the men's side of wall. 

There is something radical about that.  

Something that I beg gets noticed, answered.