What is the simplest, most elemental prayer?
Some say, "Help!"
Others say, "Thanks!"
Or perhaps it is "Wow!"
uttered in moments of unanticipated wonder
(or for the inarticulate and our animal cousins: "!").

I say,
for all living, breathing beings,
the quintessential prayer is this:

                <sigh>

whether issuing from contentment,
frustration,
or final expiration.

No matter:
the "!", the <sigh>—
the prayer in whatever form–
issues as much from the Beloved
as from us.

Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.