Guest Post by Greg Stump

Here are my prayers.
I open my hands and send them up to you
but there are silences circling above
that swallow the words wholly
before it seems they can reach you.

So I delay any further release,
swatting away flies and covering them from the sun
while they sleep.
I wait to hear an opening above,
to send them in a quick ascent to you.

But the clouds come and go without noise,
I cannot even discern their movement.

Suddenly, twitching then thrashing
on the ground behind curtained tree branches
takes my attention away from prayer
and quickens my unwild heart.

Softly I see the bird, small and anxious,
hopping, as if to fly but unable.
A broken wing? Wounded by predator?
It moves in circles among the needles and dirt
without escaping and frantic.

Shame seeps out of my heart
since I know I will not help it—
afraid of being mistaken for an enemy,
of being bitten and disease,
of even holding some small alive thing
in my grasp that I don’t understand.

So instead I watch as it flails at pine and leaves,
leaping in an endless spiral of inability.
I look up toward the sky, doubly cursed,
and the clouds seem to be falling at me.

I turn back to watch the bird longer
and then I begin to see
what had been somehow hidden from me:

It is not trying to escape, but rather,
is building a nest.

Then the breeze moves over my hands
and my fingers turn loose
and my prayers fly over to rest
in the bed of leaves and earth,
cool beneath the shade of your wings.