POEMS

Prayer of a Nonbeliever, Terrain.org

Desert Still Life, Sky Island Journal

A Saturday to Sort the Shed, The Westchester Review

Deeded Land, The Fourth River

June Morning in Hells Canyon, Deep Wild Journal

A Whisper of Atoms, Sky Island Journal

DakhaBrakha, The Westchester Review

80 Degrees in February, Sky Island Journal

Joshua Tree, Cirque Journal

Prayer of a Nonbeliever

Cathartes aura – purifying breeze –

is one name for a turkey vulture,

and what if prayer is like that –

praise song for a scavenger?

What if prayer is like this walk,

the same one every day,

a mantra of footsteps on mesa rock,

raptors in the wind?

What if it begins as a hint

on the piñon stippled hills,

unfurls like a scent the dogs sene

with raised snouts?

I suspect there’s prayer in the primrose

come into flower,

flake-white blossoms

blanketing the path,

in the rhythm of my quickened pulse

on the climb.

And if prayer takes its time on ridge lines,

in scant shade,

if it lingers by a petroglyph picked

into basalt — two figures with hands on hips

as if ready to dance —

then perhaps I am learning to pray.

Today, another friend’s diagnosis,

and who am I to scoff at believers?

I too like the idea of prayer as a stand-in

for clumsy words like hope,

wonder and love — for this green

green valley slaked on spring runoff,

for the whorl of dihedral wings

and the uneven heat of rising air.

— Winner of Terrain.org’s 14th Annual

Contest in Poetry, judged by Ross Gay