HOPE AND PRAYER

I have today consulted my clairvoyant and soothsayer

Who explained that the upshot of 'to pray' is a prayer,

And a prayer is a humble request or entreaty

To an all powerful and most beneficent deity.

Hope is the reasonable expectation that what one prays for will come to be,

And if it does, then for some, is proof enough of the existence of their deity.

But what if, as so often happens, prayers are unanswered and hopes are dashed?

Would that not reduce the deity to a figment of an imagination that has crashed?

No, for if one believes, he has no need for proof that his deity exists,

But if one acts only on proof, its absence creates a doubt that persists.