Prayer Essay

I was unusually ahead of my time with my own
hummingbird and my own riddle, like foxes' red

backs posing questions to the grass. I was strange
and blighted.

                                                    How do I leer?
How do I thrill, day-faced, loving the earth
the way that I do? Shall I spare your ear
the brief wind from my breath?

But shall I give you no answer? Query me
or my snowed-in shoulder and I'll have nothing to say

except lisp, lisp, lisp. I have no blue eggs
dappled in gray, no stern reply for the foxes,

no sorrow or gaze. Spare me, for I know not
what I mean, sleeper.

                                                    Guide my dazed and head-long flight.
Flicker and stray, for the foxes
have teeth and our chirps are nigh audible.

Copyright © 2007 Oliver de la Paz All rights reserved
from Furious Lullaby
Southern Illinois University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission