THE WAY A PSALM CAN BEGIN
I’ll never figure out my part
in praying. How to even start.
Like the silent heron that lands
mid-scroll in the year’s low pond, I stand
waiting. Who said there were fish here?
So, should I trail the geese? But I hear
those grating squawks. Who’d want a god
who answers the raucous? I’ve slogged
through sacred tomes and ancient scrolls,
still ask, Where’s the Spirit? What holds
Its breath? Migrating mergansers
dive, surface yards away. Answers—
if only they were black and white
as those hooded heads. Prie-dieu, this site,
this pond foxes and raptors ring,
where some black birds are red-winged.
—from Rattle #45, Fall 2014
Tribute to Poets of Faith
__________
Moira Linehan: “I am a practicing Catholic. The place where I write overlooks a small pond called Winter Pond. Its weather and wildlife keep showing me the incarnational nature of this world. Scriptural language and stories, embedded since childhood, rise up—often unbidden—and help me give voice to what I am given to praise.” (web)
