I pray to the birds

I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward.

I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day — the invocations and benedictions of Earth.

I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear and have lost.

And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.

-Terry Tempest Williams