(a trio with Timon of Athens & The Lord's Prayer)

Dear God, this world is but a word to you,
a whisper on your lips lit by the sun,
a breath drawn in and then exhaled to fill
the darker void that always looms beyond.
Yours is that silence and that darkness too.
You bear the evil of forgetfulness.
Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive
our sins as we forgive our fellow man.
And though the world will tempt us with delights
beware the stone that weighs within our heart.
You curl your tongue in laughter when we fail.
Your truth becomes a lie we can't believe.
Scoop up your heaven that you sought to lay
upon the earth. We have no use of it.

Chuck Dahlen organized and ran poetry readings in the Fox Valley from the 1970's through the 1990's. His current work “Trios” is a harmony of Shakespeare plays, his writing and other literary voices. He sits with his dog, Poet.