A Prayer

Spread the love

by Laura Parker Roerden

I am just human scaled,
in a world that has become too big to hold.

Here, this morning, a bird calls out to me,
I look up and see an eastern bluebird

alit on the fence. Its song is startling
in the silence, as it has something urgent to convey.

I cannot parse the rising and falling melody,
but I know it speaks to me, or perhaps of me.

There are others darting behind it. Four, maybe five.
I feel invited to expand my view to consider them all.

They are involved in some sort of work or play,
but they are marking the landscape of the hayfield as if

foghorns in the mist; they whirl and dart expertly
around cathedrals rising as trees and rocks now ballast.

The world clamors for my attention from all sides
of the globe; disasters unfolding like popups on a book

from which we cannot simply turn the page.
The suffering is wide and loud and connected

with threads to everything we touch: my morning coffee
afire and served with ash from the Amazon burning.

Yet I am human-scaled
in a world that has become too big to hold.

Published by Laura Parker Roerden

Laura Parker Roerden shares a love of what nature can teach us. Writer, public speaker and supportor of youth to boldly know and save the wilds. She is the founding director of Ocean Matters and a fourth generation farmer and thinks today’s young people are reason to be hopeful about the many environmental problems facing us. She lives on a family farm in Massachusetts with her husband, three boys, and an assortment of fruit trees and farm animals.

Tell us what you think!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.