There’s a rusty chair left over from your grandparents in law, one the squirrels haven’t yet torn to shreds. Pull it from the corner of the yard and right to the center, the pollen crunching under your feet. There’s a neighbor behind you, his garage door open. Music is playing. Something is being fixed or installed. Push that from your focus, and avoid being annoyed by his perpetual busy suburban nesting. There’s a deck before you, decades old, creaking & buckled from rain & sun, boards warped & bleached, nails reaching upward. Some slats mossed over fold beneath the lightest of footsteps. Give thanks for the long years this space has given you, and avoid being annoyed at this crumbling hazard. There’s a vista before you, a roof that’s never leaked, a tree above it, right at the center of this part of your life. Cross your legs. Palm the glass of wine. Watch for mosquitos. And look up. There are clouds & birds, branches & wind. It’s all starting again. It always will.
Written in response to this challenge.
middleagedmiddlechild. 
2 responses to “how to pray at home.”
I love that you took the “How to Be…”inspiration and created (and thanks for passing it on). The lines, “…avoid being annoyed/
by his perpetual busy/suburban nesting.” This is key to your “how to pray at home” message for me, that resistance to judgment, both of self and of others.
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[…] Resolve to think quietly & bravely,taking up the burden of selflessness.You will fail. You will try to solve it all.Words of wisdom will come — maybe not yours –and you'll discover the burden lightened,the effort cleansing. Your mind will seem clear,but the worry, the ego will return.Spectres of judgment & mercy will dancethrough the torn curtain of your certaintywhile you limp & pause, ready to give up.This part — a kind of death — comes to us all.A thistle weighed down by rain bends earthward.With time, with grace, with the light of the skies,it rights itself — frail, still, rooted, alive. Written in community with VerseLove, a group of mostly educators writing a poem every day of April (National Poetry Month). The prompt for today: Write a poem of instruction. I've written on this subject before, sorta. […]
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