Sometimes a prayer
arrives like a stock phrase—
like well-worn beads of syllables
others have strung into smooth
and beautiful strands.
But the prayers that have saved me
are the ones that arrive like burrs.
They hurt a little, hook into my skin,
such stubborn, dogged prayers.
They make me a living agent
of spreading their seeds.
And with every move I make,
they don’t let me forget
they are here.
Posts Tagged ‘prayer’
Sometimes a Prayer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beads, burr, prayer on October 9, 2025| 2 Comments »
Creatures, All
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged animal, body, delight, humanness, prayer, sound on August 18, 2025| 6 Comments »
I love the small sounds of pleasure
people make when taking the first
sip of coffee, or when sitting, at last,
after standing for hours. That soft
hum of delight that escapes the lips
when someone presses a thumb
into the arch of our foot and makes
small circles on the sole. That sigh
that flies out when we step into shade
on a relentlessly sunny day. Bless these
moments when the mind can’t outbrain
the animal living inside us, when
our untamed self slips through the cage
of decorum and groans or purrs
or moans or gasps and reminds us
that beneath all our fancy syntax
and pretty words, we’re creatures.
Every triumphant roar and ecstatic howl
is proof of our common primitive tongue.
Fluent in human, we praise in squeals,
blissful giggles, grateful throaty grunts.
The Chosen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choosing, chosen, connection, fruit, grocery store, melon, prayer on August 2, 2025| 3 Comments »
You hear how this one is dull, she said,
as she knocked on the melon.
I rapped the green skin and nodded.
Now, she said, try this one.
I knocked and heard the brightness.
Vibrant, she said. Vibrant, I agreed.
She picked it up and handed the melon
to me. This one, she said. Choose this one.
Tonight, I imagine some great hand
coming to knock on my chest, rapping
just above my heart, testing me
to see if I am one worth choosing.
I’m surprised by the prayer that arrives.
Choose us all, please, choose us all.
Right in the Middle of the Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fawn, opening, prayer on July 17, 2025| 8 Comments »
There, beside the willows,
two white-spotted fawns
clumsily stepped through
tall summer grass,
and what rose in me
then was such intimate
prayer—not the kind
where I praise or make
requests, but the kind
where my whole being
becomes a deep green field,
wide enough anything
can enter, not only
the fawns but the mountain lion,
not only the willows
but the ones I call weeds,
and all that is asked of me
is that I notice what it’s like
to be, even for a moment,
that open.
How I’ve Started to Pray
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, god, prayer on April 3, 2025| 4 Comments »
And if god is in everything—in the bend of the river
and the apricot tree, the song of the blackbird
and the awkward smile of the little ballerina
in purple who wandered out tonight onto the stage
to join a dance recital already in progress—
a dance class that wasn’t even hers— yes, if god
is in everything, and I believe god is—
in the dishrag, in the man who throws
bottles at the people marching for peace,
even in this angriest red sliver of me,
if god is in everything then maybe that is why
I have started to want to pray to everything—
or maybe more truly, to pray with everything—
the wave, the blossom, the awkward smile,
the dirty cotton, the broken glass, the rising ache,
the wonder that opens in me when I trust
there was never even a half of a moment when we all
did not deeply, fully, wholly belong to each other.
What I Know of Love When Times Are Dark
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged candle, dark times, love, prayer on April 2, 2025| 8 Comments »
And if you can’t find a candle,
then light the wick of your wonder.
And if you can’t find your wonder,
then now might be a good time
to pray. And if you don’t
know how to pray,
then perhaps you are doing it right.
What do I know of prayer?
Only that every prayer that has saved me
is a prayer that has found me
instead of the other way round—
a prayer that comes through me,
as if I am nothing more
than flesh in service to a prayer.
And if there is a candle, then light it.
And if there is a candle, ask it
to be your teacher. And if there is
a candle, notice how far its light
can reach. See if you, too, can touch
the world as generously as a candle,
just that far, holding back not even
the tiniest measure of love.
How
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, prayer, resistance on January 22, 2025| 17 Comments »
A little context: if you have ever been in a class with me, you likely know I often joke (except I’m not joking) that EVERYTHING has something to teach us … except ticks. So. In these days when I find myself faced with things I really really do not want to turn toward, I have finally done what I swore I would never do. I wrote a poem about ticks. I consider this practice.
*
I pray to keep falling in love with everyone I meet.
—Mark Nepo, from “In Love with the World”
Not the tick, no.
Surely it is not sacred.
Do not try to tell me so.
Repulsive tiny blood suckers.
I do not wish to be impressed
by their survival, do not want
to respect how they have thrived
since the first flowering plants
arrived on earth over
one hundred million years ago.
I do not want to praise
their hard protective shells, nor how
efficiently they swell,
nor the ease with which they sense
moisture, heat, vibration.
Rather to vilify what disgusts me.
Repulsive little carriers of sickness.
Vile little vectors of disease.
What joy is there in knowing
a tick is so effective and good
at doing what a tick was made to do?
Could it be greater than the perverse joy
I get from my hatred? It is clear
my repulsion does not affect the tick.
Oh, clenched heart. Oh, clenched fist.
Where is the line between what I love
and what I resist?
Is it true there is holiness in everything?
How do I wound myself
when my heart and hand are closed?
Let my prayer not be to fall in love,
but to open to the prayer I do not yet know.
One on Thanksgiving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged paradox, prayer, thanksgiving on November 29, 2024| 13 Comments »
one hand opens in grief
the other in gratitude
pressing them together to pray
When She Asked Me About Prayer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged annihilation of the separate self, prayer on September 19, 2024| 9 Comments »
I don’t know, but maybe
it has something to do
with sitting on the roof
and watching what’s left
of the lunar eclipse while
crickets sing silence
into ecstatic buzz
and joy spills into my cells
till the idea of self washes away.
Or, when I’m shucked by loss.
The self in tatters. Raw.
Naked. Unable to know.
Utterly flayed. Then.
That’s when I pray.
Terce
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, hope, light, prayer, sun on October 11, 2023| 9 Comments »
It’s the light this morning
that opens me. How is it
a certain changing angle of gold
can make the heart leap up
all nimble and sprightly and eager to praise
as if it’s never before seen such beauty,
as if it doesn’t happen every day,
this radiance that reaches
through space to find us
wherever we happen to stand
on this unlikely planet.
I don’t know how it is the light
works as a luminous key to unguard me
and swing wide my gates,
but on this morning filled with news
that makes me shutter, shut down,
close off and clench,
this stroke of light, it’s everything.
When It Rains
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cloud, opening, prayer, rain, unease on August 27, 2023| 9 Comments »
When a cloud follows me
as if we are tethered,
can I find peace with the shade?
It’s easy to wish it away.
Can I wish it away
and at the same time
tilt my head back,
keep my eyes wide
and breathe?
These are the days
I learn to pray—
pray not for what I want,
but to be opened
by what is here.
On Prayer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged prayer, silence, sound, wayne muller on February 19, 2023| 12 Comments »
for Mark Primavesi
Prayer is what happens when we listen, and wait, beneath words, for the outline of heaven and earth to emerge.
—Wayne Muller, “Nourished by Prayer”
Today prayer is the silence
in the snow-deep meadow.
It’s the gurgle of the ice-choked river
that cannot be heard unless
I am completely still. Today,
prayer is not to, it’s not for,
it’s something I am
more than something I do.
Prayer is even the sound
of the logging trucks on the highway
as they brake rounding the corner.
It’s the rapid shush, shush, shush
of my skis in the track as I climb the hill.
It’s the sizzle of onions in the oil.
It’s the hitch in my breath before I cry.
I’m astonished, today, to find
there is nothing that isn’t prayer
when I am aware it’s an invitation
to be completely here, to open;
it’s a call to meet it all
with the love that asks nothing from me
except that I give it and receive it.
Every single thing can be prayer.
Even the siren blaring by.
Even my own familiar voice
as I listen into the silences
for whatever words come next.
The Prayers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gratefulness, grief, opening, prayer, waves on September 25, 2022| 14 Comments »
When I asked the world to open me,
I did not know the price.
When I wrote that two-word prayer in the sand,
I did not know loss was the key,
devastation the hinge,
trust was the dissolution
of the idea of a door.
When I asked the world to open me,
I could never have said yes to what came next.
Perhaps I imagined the waves
knew only how to carry me.
I did not imagine they would also pull me under.
When I asked the world to open me,
I had not imagined drowning
was the way to reach the shore.
The waves of sorrow dragged me down
with their tides of unthinkable loss.
The currents emptied my pockets
and stripped me of my ideas.
I was rolled and eroded
and washed up on the sand
like driftwood—softened.
I sprawled there and wept,
astonished to still be alive.
It is not easy to continue to pray this way.
Open me.
And yet it is the truest prayer I know.
The other truest prayer,
though sometimes I long to run
from its truth, is Thank you.
Getting to I Don’t Know
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged certainty, prayer, uncertainty on September 20, 2022| 9 Comments »
Sometimes, too certain I know what love is,
I miss love.
It’s like thinking water is waves,
not seeing water is also the depths of ocean,
the muscle of river, the body, the air,
ice, snow, fog, clouds, mist.
Sometimes, longing to hear certain words,
I neglect to hear the words that are spoken.
Or craving a certain touch, I disregard
all other touch, and my skin believes it is starving.
There is beauty beyond beauty, love beyond love,
opening beyond opening, an apple inside apple.
Let my prayer be I don’t know.
Let me find the door inside the door,
the glimmer inside the glimmer,
the human inside this woman.
The god inside of god.
One Unusual Delivery Service
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cloud, prayer, wind on September 3, 2022| 6 Comments »
tying my prayer
to a passing cloud—
come wind
For the Knitter of Shawls
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gift, knitting, love, prayer on August 2, 2021| 2 Comments »
On the day
I most needed
to remember
how to pray,
a prayer shawl
arrived in the mail.
I wrapped myself in it
and felt in the trinity stitch
the singing of my name,
felt the colors tether me
to my own heart.
Sometimes when we
feel most alone,
the world conspires
through the goodness
of others to remind us
who we are,
remind us that now
is the right moment
to wrap ourselves
in the kind of beauty
no fear can extinguish,
now is the right moment
to feel how,
though we are alone,
love floats
around our shoulders
soft and so warm.
In Orbit
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aloneness, earth, prayer, space, violence on March 26, 2021| 6 Comments »
Count the one beautiful blue and green planet.
Count it again.
Say “home,” then marvel at the taste of tears.
Notice how no borders matter from here.
Remember how important they feel
when standing on a border. Once
you dreamt of being alone. Of being
far away from parking lots and grocery store lines
and men with guns and violent conviction.
Now you dream of touching someone else,
of breathing in the scent of garden dirt,
of hearing a voice without static, of lying down
in a bed, held by your own sweet gravity.
What you would do to taste a tree-ripened peach.
Give up on counting stars. Draw lines between them,
creating your own constellations:
The open hand. The river gorge. The crooked evergreen.
A semi-automatic rifle, which you re-constellate
into a small bouquet of lilies. Consider forgiveness.
Wonder how long it will take before it feels authentic.
Circling has taught you how things come around.
Remember? There was a time you didn’t think
you knew how to pray.
This Difficult Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged loss, prayer, spring on March 22, 2021| 3 Comments »
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.