Psalms

A part of us is always praying
for those things the other parts
don’t know that they need.

At dusk,
Eight Great Blue Herons pick their legs out of muck,
Sixteen bony legs stroke the nerve of the sky,
Huge Heron weight lumbering, carving smoothly into air.

I watch them cross the channel toward me
toward me
toward me,
Land in a tree
above my head.

I knew a boy
born with no hands,
Learned to paint with his feet.
I have hands
that don’t know where to go,
How to make or mend,
How to turn events,
Render any answers.
I stumble,
Colors wash away.

Sometimes it is one thing,
And then another,
And another,
The way things angle together
in a prism
where wind can bend light.

Carving into air underneath Heron wings,
Trying to decipher faith,
Feel reprieve into possible woulds,
Trying hard to paint that pardoning place
on the wind
of Heron wings,
Opening to the place where I need to know.

Rebecca Lee Yates