March 12: On My Mind, Worries, "Take My Burdens"

I've had a lot on my mind these last few weeks.  Sleep has been difficult at night.  Tired all day.  Worries stacked up like the snow outside my kitchen window.

I know that worry doesn't really help anything.  Won't reopen the medical office where I used to work.  Or get me a new job.  Or grade my stack of student essays.  Or make my son's illness disappear.  Or slow down my daughter's last few months of high school.  I could go on.  The list is long.

Saint Marty just wishes he could go back to a simpler time.  Like kindergarten.

Take My Burdens

by:  Martin Achatz

Take my burdens, Lord.
Take my mortgage payment, water bill.
Car insurance due two days ago.
You can pay it online.  I'm sure
You have WiFi.  Take the essays
I have to grade.  They're about Dante’s
Inferno.  You probably have more
Insight than I about hell, anyway.
Just watch for comma splices, plagiarism.
My attic needs to be emptied out, Lord.
Old clothes, toys to Vincent de Paul,
The store not the saint.  Let's talk about
Painting my kitchen, too.  Strip wallpaper,
Tear out wood paneling.  You may have
To drywall a little.  I'd prefer a color
That reminds me of summer, light green,
Oak and maple leaves at dawn.
You know the shade.  I trust You.
Take my burdens, Lord.
If You could drive tomorrow morning
That would be great.  Snow's coming, patches
Of black ice, snow plows and sanders
In pitch dark.  Your eyes are better,
Plus You can keep deer out of our way.
Or You could just hold off on snow,
Take those clouds, overstuffed
Laundry bags, send them to cleaners
In a different place, New York or Ontario,
Bermuda or Cuba, if it wouldn't screw up
Things too much, global warming, ozone
Depletion…You know what's best.
Take my burdens, Lord.
I suppose I should say something
About Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, ask
For peace in the world, people of all
Colors and religions to exist together 
In harmony, really close harmony.
Peter, Paul, and Mary, Kingston Trio
Harmony, where you can't tell one voice
From the other, the way some Tibetan monks
Can vibrate their vocal chords, create
Two voices in their throats at the same time.
Take all my burdens, Lord.
I'll leave them piled on my front step, the way
My grandmother left milk bottles
On her stoop in the old days
For the milkman she never saw.