Last Week's Reading

I pray to the birds.

I pray to the birds because I believe

they will carry messages of my heart upward.

I pray to them because I believe in their existence,

the way their songs begin and end each day

- the invocations and benedictions of earth.

I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love

rather than what I fear.

And at the end of my prayers,

they teach me how to listen.

~ Terry Tempest Williams