Praying on Public Hunting Land

I enter the woods

with a shotgun and a Bible,

obviously searching for something.

My focus splits. I tighten my grip,

scan the trees, step carefully,

accidentally swallow some spider webs.

You can't watch where you're going

and study the canopy

at the same time.

Remember, you look for movement,

not for shapes.

When I'm exhausted from walking,

I will hang my backpack on a broken limb,

remove a thermos and my Bible,

thumb for notable guidance:

words that live on,

advice that isn't just useful,

but can also be remembered.

Conifers offer clues,

familiar smells, bladed arrows that point in all directions.

Rabbit scat melts the snow, but only a little.

In the spring, good luck seeing anything.

Some stories can't hold their own potential.

These woods end at the prairie's edge.

The prophets, their locust-flavored tongues

speak in a different time. What does one even do

with the final chapter of Ezra?

I hide His word in my bag, and keep walking,

warm from hot coffee and big ideas

on observance, how tradition

seeps from the ground,

strengthens the forest floor,

all foundations worth building upon.

I've never hit a bag limit,

but I suppose an empty cooler

will always have room, and somewhere

a moral is being determined.

The right page is just waiting to be flipped.

I'm one mouthful of cobwebs

from learning where to look.