Praying Mantis

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

All day long the mantis is there,

praying atop the tall purple coneflower,

a vestibule to other worlds

Where wise ones answer:

“It’s already been gifted to you,”

And hope we realize this soon enough.

Butterflies come.

Some brilliant and new to air, still

marveling at what has become of them,

Others thin-winged and edge-tattered,

realizing that beauty alone cannot

save a soul.

It’s never over quickly.

When the mantis strikes and takes

a great spangled fritillary into her arms,

folding it against itself so that the underwings

reveal iridescent constellations to the heavens

and the long, soft body is easy to taste,

I must resign myself to this.

I must sit with this, this pain and death

that is an

answer to a prayer,

this sound of tiny mantis mouthparts scissoring

into flesh that yet twitches and I believe

knows the agony of form and spirit.

Yes, I must.

Because this is it. Life.

And it must be looked at and sat with

and listened to long enough to realize

that crickets are chirping and crows cawing

and barred owls asking ‘Who cooks for you?’

and acknowledged that I do this too, every day.

And this is how I remind myself

what it is

to have prayers answered.

This is how I teach my heart gratitude.

~Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World" 


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