Praying Kind

 

Praying Kind

 

I’m not much for church-y praying.

Especially the kind where you say

somebody else’s words,

expecting them to snag off you

like a match

dragged across the sandpaper

of your particular circumstances

so as to flare right up to heaven,

lighting your miseries

for some of God’s attention.

 

But when a siren’s whine cuts close

I can’t keep myself from passing words through

my chest to add whatever holiness I possess,

saying “oh Lord give em strength,”

before turning back to shelling peas

or stacking firewood.

 

And I think it’s like prayer

to farm, mindful

that plants and animals

need to be exactly what they are,

seeing as nature is God drawing circles

for us to learn the shape of things.

 

Still, when I pass a big dairy farm

where hundreds of cows never walk in sunshine,

never eat green grass

growing so close they can smell it,

never get to suckle their calves,

I put in mind the quiet peace

of our own cows on pasture,

and I send that peace out

to every confined creature.

If that’s prayer,

then I’m the praying kind.

 

 

Published in the poetry collection, Tending.