To Those Coming After

I pray that I will know you.
I pray that you are the children of my friends,
of my chosen family,
of my sisters and brothers and siblings,
that my wife and I cherished your mothers and fathers and parents
at least an order of magnitude within how much they cherished you.
I pray you will only know a hyper-transparent glass of water and money as obsolete.
I pray that my actions and values and words
brought you solace, introspection,
in the way that going to a museum and viewing a historical artifact does.
I pray that I protected you,
that your present is the future that existed in my will.
I pray you live, I pray you sleep,
and I pray you will never need to write this poem.