Today the prayer is words
I can’t yet find,
words that flit away
like spring juncos, like chickadees.
Today the prayer I wish for
is not the prayer that finds me—
less like the perfume of a fully bloomed flower
more like the dank and fusty scent of spring.
Some days when I forget how to pray,
if I listen with my whole body,
the world reminds me how what is used up, spent
is also a vessel for the holy,
as dry leaves become a nest
as bare branches hold the sunrise.