2006 Thomas Merton Prize - Poetry of the Sacred

(Winning Poem by Jeffrey Johnson of Sudbury, Massachusetts)

Of how much more value
are you than the birds?
Luke 12:24

If you can focus your eyes
on that bird on the bench,
the one in the charcoal suit
with the off-white shirt,
see that it's small and proper
with a formal tail tipping
and a head swiveling socially,
see how it flaps straight up
and lands on the same spot,
with bugs on its breath, see it
smooth and present there
and not as a specimen,
an example, a kind or a type,
as a pet to be held or a carcass
for the altar or the market,
but as a small bird on a bench,
then you will have prayed,
and prayed well I would say,
as if you loved an ordinary
and otherwise unnoticed bird.