The Real Prayers Are Not the Words,
but the Attention that Comes First
by Mary Oliver
The little hawk leaned sideways and, tilted, rode the wind. Its eye at this distance looked like green glass; is feet were the colour of butter. Speed obvious- ly, was joy. But then. So was the sudden, slow circle of its shoulders, and the pulling into itself the long, sharp-edged wings, and the fall into the grass where it tussled a moment, like a bundle of brown leaves, and then, again, lifted itself into the air, that butter-colour clenched in order to hold a small, still body, and it flew off as my mind sang out oh that loose, blue rink of sky, where does it go to, and why?
Prayers without Words
by David Dayson
Prayers begin as the attention you give before you put them into words, as delicate as gold leaf, applied to the frame around a scene. It is not to be wasted on regret; you never could foretell the future, only charlatans pretend to do so. Nor frittered away on tittle-tattle; other people's gossip and paranoia is quicksand for the soul. Instead, this clear-sunned day in May, beside waves engrossed in ceaseless babble, I shall give my whole-hearted attention to climbing chalk paths over Dorset cliffs, cut through swathes of emerald green, prinked by Oxeye Daisies, with no need of words in the moment of my walking, enough to be at peace, at one, with beauty. Each step shall be a wordless prayer, God knows this feckless world needs them, twenty-five thousand today, and still not enough.
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I love "paranoia is quicksand for the soul"
and "prinked".