Accidental Prayer

A poem on moral beauty

Accidental Prayer

You see someone helping

an elderly woman gather

the things from her handbag

that overturned on an escalator—

lipstick tubes, perfume bottle,

loose change—and you say

to yourself: I could do the same,

let a stranger know they matter.

Then the simple act of kindness

you witnessed becomes a prayer

that ripples out and out, touching

the far shore of y…