"I don't know where prayers go..."

I Happened To Be Standing by Mary Oliver I don't know where prayers go,       or what they do. Do cats pray, while they sleep       half-asleep in the sun? Does the opossum pray as it       crosses the street? The sunflowers? The old black oak       growing older every year? I know I can walk through the world,       along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things       of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really       call being alive. Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,       or does it matter? The sunflowers blaze, maybe that's their way. Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not. While I was thinking this I happened to be standing just outside my door, with my notebook open, which is the way I begin every morning. Then a wren in the privet began to sing. He was positively drenched in enthusiasm, I don't know why. And yet, why not. I wouldn't persuade you from whatever you believe or whatever you don't. That's your business. But I thought, of the wren's singing, what could this be       if it isn't a prayer? So I just listened, my pen in the air. "I Happened To Be Standing" by Mary Oliver from A Thousand Mornings. © The Penguin Press, 2012. buy now)