my prayer
is the cold sunlight
on forsythia

as the cooke's hollow brook
burbles and gushes
in the background

as a lone sparrow
bounces along
the hard new england soil

like the consonants
in the verb pipiabat
from that old catullus poem

*

my prayer
is the slouch and slack
of night at the laptop

as i write to a friend
and wonder
where the words come from