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dreamprayact

~ Reflections of a preacher, poet, and contemplative activist

dreamprayact

Tag Archives: Birds

At Day’s End

24 Sunday Aug 2025

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Poems

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Birds, cloud of witnesses, fear, God, Great Spirit, love, mountains, oceans, oneness, trees, worry, writing

Writing is self-therapy,
a way to express what to me is true – 
maybe not empirically provable,
or scientifically viable,
but true in how it has shaped me
and where it brings me to new awareness.

Skies are canvases painted by the Eternal One,
birds are winged messengers from beyond,
trees breathe and shimmer as though a poem.

Mountains rise in praise of Great Spirit,
oceans teem with diversity, singing glory in many voices,
creatures great and small are all our relations.

I am a minor player on life’s stage.

No one will remember me in a hundred years.
What I’ve written will be lost to time.

For a moment though, I am a witness to life,
aware of the cloud of witnesses who have preceded me,
aware that we are all held in the eternal embrace
of an Inexhaustible Love that has no beginning or end,
aware that we are intimately bound together 
across borders and walls and geopolitical lines
and that we in our finitude cannot undo what is timeless.

All of life is one.

When worry or fear seduce me,
taunting me with my insignificance,
I go in search of pen and paper
where I can strip away the pretense
of having any of this figured out.

Because for me
at the end of the day
it is enough to know
truly know

I have been loved.

Mark Lloyd Richardson
August 2025

How Grace Comes

01 Tuesday Jul 2025

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Poems

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Birds, blessing, earth, eternity, forests, grace, heaven, oceans

How Grace Comes

Grace comes in birdsong 
rising on the wings of dawn
from branches of white oak,
ponderosa pine, quaking aspen –
the bright, joyous sounds
of our feathered relations.

Grace comes new every morning,
hinting at heaven’s eternal song
in which oceans swell and retreat,
forests breathe, replenishing earth’s body,
and waves of tall grass splash like surf 
in the summer-scented breeze.

This is how grace comes—
untamed,
unearned,
unexplained but deeply felt –  
a stirring in the heart,
a resting in the knowing.

In the fresh morning air
grace catches up with you,
fills your senses,
buoys your spirit, and
rouses you to life with its
wild audacious nature. 

Mark Lloyd Richardson
June 2025

Feathered Blessings

16 Thursday May 2024

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Birds, Blessings, Breathing, hiking, soul, spring

The trail feels steep today and leads me
to an opening among pine and madrone,
a vantage point above the green valley 
clothed in spring splendor and cradling 
the town that is becoming my home.

Purple Finch and Nashville Warbler 
trade gentle notes upon the breeze, 
back and forth, a call and response,
their lively voices drenched in delight,
never tiring of this celebration of living.

I pause to allow my breathing to still 
enough so I might receive a message
birds seem singularly able to bestow,
like blessings drifting down in consecration,
alighting on the still restless places in my soul.

Mark Lloyd Richardson
May 2024

Conversations by the Water Fountain

09 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Reflections

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Birds, Fountain, I Feel Good, James Brown, Water

In my blogging collaboration with my wife Dallis, usually what happens is that I write something and pass it along to her to see if she has photos to accompany my writing. She has a lot of photos, and the natural world and its creatures are among her favorite subjects.

With this post, the process is reversed. Dallis gave me a photo of some birds camped out at the fountain in our backyard, and my job was to write something.

But I need your help. What do you think? Option A, B, or C? Cast your vote in the comment section below! You might even say why.

Garden fountain

Note: In the imaginary conversations below, little bird’s words are in italics!

Option A

“Isn’t water just the greatest?”

“It sure is! It’s so refreshing! It’s the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world! I’m so happy the inside people installed this outside bath just for us.”

“Me too!”

 (Cue James Brown singing, “I Feel Good!”)

Option B

“You know what I find amazing?”

“What’s that?”

“They can make a sky that goes on forever and ever, with hundreds of thousands of trees and branches for perching, but they can’t make a decent size bird pool! Simply amazing!”

Option C

“You see, little one, this is how the world works – bigger is better, might makes right, survival of the strongest, all that!”

“But this fountain is big enough for both of us.”

“No it isn’t. I like to spread out and move around. I like to marvel at the magnificence of myself! And I can’t do that with you hanging around. So, go find your own fountain.”

“But…”

“BEAT IT … NOW!”

December 2025
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