To the guns of the firebase, a Psalm of deliverance.

Though we are not holy men, we hope for Earthly salvation found by your power.
Though we are not covenanted, we pray for your wrath against our enemies.
The maps of this place are the maps of our souls and mortal coils, lo:
We search them under red light for the answers we seek, wondering where we are.
And so we will search ourselves in the red of the morning in ten years, wondering where we go.

With a prayer whispered skywards in our time of need, forgetting the lessons of Israel,
We turn in our impatience to another:
Pilot, if you can hear me, I need your parabolic blessing.
I need the strength of your metal wings, and the grace of your kneeboard hymns.
I give you my offering, my infrared sacrifice on this altar of aluminum and steel.

But there is no answer, and in our shame and loathing we return to you,
The force of our enemies increased a thousandfold by the delays of our transgressions.
Now, then, in observance, I return to your laws.
I have in my heart and my hands the laws of heading and bearing.
I feel with my heart and my hands the laws of trajectory and fuzing.
I know with my heart and my hands the laws of radius and area.

For each of the prayers, a sacred intonation of:
Four-two, sierra-whiskey-delta, and the final canticle: Fire for effect.
I pray to you, guns, let your bores be true, let your crew be alert, let your fire be hot.
Deliver me from my mistakes and the anger of my enemies.
May your footsteps be ruin and your word be Law.


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