Prayer before BirthI am not yet born O hear me.Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me.I am not yet born console me.I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me with strong drugs dope me with wise lies lure me on black racks rack me in blood-baths roll me.I am not yet born provide meWith water to dandle me grass to grow for me trees to talk to me sky to sing to me birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me.I am not yet born forgive meFor the sins that in me the world shall commit my words when they speak me my thoughts when they think me my treason engendered by traitors beyond me my life when they murder by means of my hands my death when they live me.I am not yet born rehearse meIn the parts I must play and the cues I must take when old men lecture me bureaucrats hector me mountains frown at me lovers laugh at me the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me.I am not yet born O hear meLet not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me.I am not yet born O fill meWith strength against those who would freeze my humanity would dragoon me into a lethal automaton would make me a cog in a machine a thing with one face a thing and against all those who would dissipate my entirety would blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands would spill me.Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.Otherwise kill me.