Being Prayer

 

Lord, it is summer,
a time to pause from the busyness
to remember who we are.
Make us lie down in green pastures,
feel the grass pushing up against us,
so that we might know its blessing.
Remind us, as we lie there on our backs,
that we are made of earth--
formed of the same holy stuff
of sunflowers and squirrels,
golfinches and fireflies,
creatures of your delight!
And yet we gaze into the heavens,
marvel with wonder at clouds
in a thousand shifting shapes
as they sail like ships across the sky,
before giving way to singing night
and the ancient mystery of stars.
And then we dream of wings.
Spirit and flesh,
wind and earth,
longing and love,
we are yours.
Make us lie down
in the breathing place
between earth and heaven,
and be.

 

--Timothy Haut, June 23, 2013

June

Now June settles in,

Warm as sun,

Strawberry-sweet.

It is the world turned green,

No patch of earth able to stay bare,

Burgeoning with sprouting weeds,

Pushing up lush grass,

Clover-speckled,

Alive with the hum of bees

And the dance of butterflies.

In this time of long light

A quiet breeze stirs

The great leaves of rhubarb,

Waves the purple heads of iris,

Ripples the emerald waters

Of pond and stream,

Carries the evening song

Of grateful wrens and awakening cicadas.

Perhaps it is not just a movement of air,

But the delighted sigh

Of the One who is Life

Admiring this June creation,

Winking at us in the first firefly,

Spilling this goodness as a gift,

Hoping that we might receive with wonder

This June blessing.

--Timothy Haut, June 2, 2013