A prayer for the bored

This is a prayer for the bored
sitting, becalmed in the day,
endlessly at 10.17,
forever only one third of the way
into something,
whatever that something is.

These words are for those
who always have deadlines
looming somewhere,
like a forecast of rain in high summer,
but who choose to ignore them
and study the sand more closely.

This is a prayer for the vague,
the lazy, the hazy,
the people with nothing better to do,
those who imagine themselves
performing great deeds,
loving great loves,
straightening out past lives
or winning the lottery.
Pen drummers.
Elastic banders.
Vowel counters.
People with more thoughts
than are good for them.
Stopped watchers and broken wishers.
Those outside the envelope,
whatever that envelope is.
Those whose conversation is like a bird in a tree,
hopping distractedly from website to website,
if websites were branches,
desperately mixing and stretching life’s metaphors.

This is a prayer for those who can be bothered
but only about proper things.
It is the war cry of the despairing,
an attempt to remember wonder.
It is something to do.

Amen.