The Atheist at Prayer
Michael J. Gill

And for crocuses poking through
humus, for peaches and cherries
and rain, for June mosquito, August
sweat, October song, and tree-frog
May, for winter wheat in autumn fields
I pray hard to nothing:
                                  I run
over grass-hill tickling wind,
the belly of atmosphere sliding,
panting across the soil; I send up
ten thousand hosannas to nothing;

I run, pant, fall, and grind
my hips into earth's warm mounds;
I run to the woodpile, breathe me
some flannel clean shirt clear day
wind and raise that sacred blade;

I empty life into oak with an axe
and split the chopping stump
to the quiet ground below.

ISBN 0-9624453-4-7
24 pages/$6