reading

I pray to the birds because
I believe they will carry the 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 the 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