Prayers of the Cowboy Church

I dream of pastors in sermon preaching open air and sky,

burning tobacco aback broken beasts.

In prayer, they forego stained glass for an act of God,

facing light that knows how to turn mountains red.

Would they call it a miracle?

If they could see the way bright explodes 

through the stained glass like some weightless bullet. 

It’ll never be alpenglow 

and they’ll never leave the desert ‘cause

imagine how silly I felt praying

to a rainbow of filtered sun, broken

across the backs of the clergy ahead of me.

God lives where there’s more shine in the sky 

than man could ever dream of making.

I pretend to be part of their collective exhale 

of smoke and sea of calloused hands reaching upward 

to remove our Stetson shields so God hears us right.

We pray for rain so we don’t feel 

the cracks in our skin 

that so much light leaves behind.