Prayer Birds

"Karen, honey?"

"I'm coming, mom!"

Pamela reached for her novel, the latest best-seller by Amy Gordon, tucked flat above the row of paperbacks on the bookshelf by the stairs. Something faded and blue caught her eye, on the shelf below, something shorter among the tall, thin children's books. She rubbed her finger along the spine, the worn buckram rough on her skin.

Karen came thumping down the stairs, barefoot, in her coveralls, and grabbed Pamela's skirt to drag her toward the back door.

"You comin?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Well, c'mon."

Pamela leaned back against the pull, allowing herself to float on the stream of her daughter's energy. At the back door Karen let go to open the screen. In the sudden release Pamela rocked back against the frame of the door to the bathroom, adjacent to the back, and caught her reflection in its milky glass panel. The scattered hair of her bangs and the escapees from her chignon hung across her eyes like a poorly made veil. She tucked the longer hairs behind her ears, then brushed the bangs back, only to let them fall again when she heard Karen's exasperated 'mom' from the back yard.

"I'm coming, honey," she called back. She switched the book to her right hand and opened the screen. She discovered she had brought the old, blue psalter as well, but she did not take the time to return it.

In the back yard Karen was already busily at work in the sand box. This was their "qualady" time, the hour or two every Saturday and Sunday when Karen decided what they would do together, go for an ice cream, a movie, a walk to the park, or just time spent, each pursuing her own interests, but together.

Pamela dragged a lawn chair and table nearer the sandbox, and settled down to read. The psalter, in her lap, underneath the novel, settled between her knees. Still reading, she transferred the novel to her left hand, reached behind it with her right, to touch the psalter, to hold it still.

** ** **

Pamela stepped down from the back porch onto the pale grey dust of the yard. A raven she had been watching, through the screen, left its perch in the old willow and flapped noisily up and away, over the house. The sun was warm, finally, after months and months of cold grey watery days, all heat drained out of the light before it managed to fall on the winter dried grass in the yard. Pamela squatted down to draw a raven in the dirt with her short-nailed index finger. Two strokes for the body, a long wiggle at one end for the tail, stroke and scribble for the wings. A small black pebble, mostly hidden in the little ridge of dust by her shoe, became the eye.

The abandoned chicken coop, in the corner of the yard farthest from the house, was Pamela's playhouse. All the previous summer, using an old broom her father had thrown away, Pamela worked at cleaning it; brushing and brushing with the stiff remains of the straws, raising a cloud of acidic dust that made her nose itch and her eyes water, she worked at making it clean; brushing away the old feathers stuck between the loose boards of the walls, and knocking down the spiders and cobwebs that obscured the fragile grey shingles of the low roof.

Now she only needed to sweep it out once a day, only when she could get away to play there. Against the wall farthest from the door, where the shed roof rose to its highest point, she had stacked two vegetable crates, covering them with the sheet she had managed to save from her mother's things, kept in the root cellar, wrapped in an old gunny sack, before her aunt, her father's sister, Amelia, had methodically collected, bagged and carted them away.

On the wall, cradled in a strip of cloth torn from the sheet, hung the cross Pamela had made, braided of feathers, threads from the sheet, and dried blue blossoms from the weedy plants that fought the grasses for space in the spring. It hung from a nail that had once supported chicken perches. In a pair of saucers, spaced carefully on her altar, Pamela had placed two red candles, made from the soft sheets of red wax that wrapped the cheeses her father got from the county relief, rolled carefully around shreds of cloth hoarded from the fraying edge of her mother's sheet.

Pamela picked up her broom from where it stood in the corner near the door. Willow leaves that had sifted through the loosely shingled roof danced across the floor, along with the dust, in time to her brisk strokes.

After replacing the broom in the corner, Pamela lifted the edge of her worn skirt, knelt, and fitted her bare knees to the two palm sized spots of burnished wood that lay squarely before the altar. Bowing her head before the feather cross, she began the Lord's Prayer.

In the kitchen of the house, Rick hung his arm across the open door of the refrigerator, his eyes shifting this way and that in his stiffly held head, searching hopefully for a beer he was sure he had overlooked about half an hour ago.

Our father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name

Rick's hand hung loosely, the fingers curled gently, pulsing in time to the shifts of his eyes. There was little on the shelves that might reasonably hide a can of beer, much less a bottle. Bottle, hell, Rick thought, I never buy them bottles anyway.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven

Finding, again, nothing of interest, Rick turned away from the open refrigerator, letting his hip bump the door closed; a solid clunk sound. On the door of the refrigerator, at a level with Rick's hip, a dark, polished spot marked the repetition of this action.

Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us

Rick returned to the living room and sank, wearily, into the brown upholstered lounge chair that faced the glowing television. The sixth inning of a Toronto/Cleveland game rippled across the screen, stressed by a failing component, or perhaps only distorted by the broken path the broadcast waves must follow through the hills surrounding the house.

Lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil

The Blue Jays were leading six to two, and the way Cleveland was playing, two errors in the fourth and one in the fifth, Rick figured that was not likely to change. He settled into the lounger, pushing the back so the footrest sprung from its nest behind his ankles, into the fully extended position. He tucked his head into the little wing projecting from the back and closed his eyes.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory
For ever and ever, Amen.

Pamela looked up. One of the rays of sunshine that scattered themselves through the roof fell squarely upon the cross. She took the collars of her dress in her hands and held them up under her chin, watching, until the light had shifted down, and to the right. She removed her book of psalms from the pocket of her dress. It was bound in blue cloth, the corners ragged and turned in like small birds claws straining to contain something. A ribbon, that once had been blue, that had turned grey from the innumerable times it had been smoothed down between the pages, that had raveled to the very edge of the pages, marked her place. She opened it, to psalm 84.

Amy, lay in the double bed, watching a spangle on the ceiling. The spangle came off the top of her plastic jewelry box, that sat on her little dressing table standing in front of her window. She fanned the hem of her tee-shirt, making small puffs of wind come out the top, to cool the bottom of her chin. Sounds of the television came to her through the floor, like the sounds of a dog dreaming.

O how amiable are thy dwellings, thou Lord of Hosts
My soul hath a desire and longing
to enter into the Courts of the Lord:
My heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God

Amy threw the sheet off her legs; the room was warm. She brushed, with her hand, at the sweat that had collected between her thighs, letting her forearm rest against her pubis; the coarse hairs like a loofah against her skin. She lifted her knees, rubbing out the slickness of the sweat, so it would dry more quickly in the warm air, with that prickly sensation of something being removed, revealed.

Yea, the sparrow has found her an house,
and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young:
even Thy altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and God
Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house:
they will be always praising thee

The smell of dry grasses fluttered through the small opening at the bottom of her window. She stood by the bed, staring out, through the window, across the dusty street. The Pettisons, who lived in a one story ranch style house, were out working in their garden. Amelia pulled her tee-shirt down and went to sit at her dressing table. The spangle was in her eyes and she moved the jewelry box to throw the sunlight into a different place.

Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee:
in whose heart are thy ways
Who are going through the vale of misery
use it for a well, the pools are filled with water
They will go from strength to strength:
and unto the God of gods
appeareth every one of them in Sion

The earrings she missed last Saturday had slipped under the box and were now revealed. Amy laughed in her chest, letting the breaths out through her nose. She put their hoops through the tiny, puckered holes in her ears, and looked at herself in the small mirror that stood to the side, in its figured gilt frame. The earrings were small silver birds, with a bead of turquoise each, as eyes.

O Lord God of Hosts, hear my prayer,
hearken, O God of Jacob
Behold, O God our defender:
and look upon the face of thine anointed
For one day in Thy courts is better than a thousand
I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God
than to dwell in the tents of ungodliness

Amy applied whitener to the lower lids, blue shadow to the upper, liner, mascara, eyebrow pencil, a little cover-up along her jaw where the sun seemed always to burn her, rouge, lipstick, powder, her movements sure, economical, practiced, calming. She brushed her hair into a semblance of order. She looked through the pile of clothes in the corner for panties and put them on. She pulled the elastic waist of a skirt over her hips, over the hem of her tee-shirt, then changed her mind and pulled the tee-shirt out. She slipped her feet into the sandals that stood by the door, and left the room.

For the Lord God is a light and defense
The Lord will give grace and worship,
and no good thing shall He withhold
from them that live a godly life.
O Lord God of Hosts: blessed is the man
that putteth his trust in Thee.

Pamela closed the psalter, returned it to the pocket of her dress. She stood, holding the dress against the backs of her legs. All the flakes of sun were on the wall below the cross, or on the floor. From one of the crates Pamela pulled a shoebox and placed it over her candles. The wax was soft, she had seen that already the sun had softened one to a glistening red that seemed to tremble, but did not fall. In the dark, under the shoebox, the glistening would fade slowly to dull red, would seize itself again.

"Pamela?"

She stood very still with her eyes closed.

"Pamela, you out there?"

She knelt quickly. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all evermore. Amen."

"Pamela, lunch ready." Amy let the screen door bang closed behind her.

** ** **

She closed the book, running her hand over the rough cloth, fingered the impressed lettering. She lifted it from her lap and placed it on the small glass table next to her chair, displacing the teacup and saucer.

Karen looked up from the freeway she'd been constructing in the sandbox.

"Mom?"

"What is it, honey?"

"Mom, I need more wader."

"Well, you know where the hose is."

"I need you to get it."

"Mhmm." She smoothed her dress over her knees.

"Please Mom!"

"Yes, honey, I'll get it."

At that moment the hose was sprinkling a bed of blue iris next to the house. Pamela shut off the valve, removed the sprinkler head, and dragged the end of the hose over to the sandbox.

"No, no, leave on the spinkler! Sposed to be raining."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Pamela retrieved the sprinkler head and replaced it on the end of the hose. After getting the valve adjusted just right she returned to her chair and watched her daughter going seriously about the business of road construction in the warm rain from the hose, periodically brushing the hair of her long bangs from her forehead, leaving smudges of sand.

After about ten minutes Karen got up to shut off the water.

"Enough rain?"

"It's startin to be a flood, the whole tunnel's flooded."

"You're pretty flooded yourself. You want to go get dried off?"

"Yeah."

"Well, there's towels in the laundry room. Don't track sand through the house."

"Aren't you coming?"

"Be there in a minute."

While Karen ran around the side of the house, Pamela went to inspect the construction in the sandbox. The surface of the roadway, which Karen had spent much of the morning rolling smooth with a beercan, was pocked by the sprinkler rain. Beneath this, running at right angles, was the tunnel. A puddle of water remained in the bottom, slowly ebbing away. In a corner, where a triangle of wood braced the sides of the box, in the protected sand there, Karen had converted a hand print into something. It was a bird, a turkey Pamela guessed. The eye, a fringed grass seed, gave it a melancholy look.

Pamela sat on the corner. Karen's handprint, so small, hiding in the shade; she wished she could scoop it up, without disturbing the sand, carry it into her bedroom, place it on her dresser. She reached to touch it. The sand, warm, shifted minutely under her fingers. She could cover it all with her palm. Pressing down, then lifting her hand, it seemed to leave an impression. Sand grains adhered to her skin, the grass seed also, an image of her daughter's hand, in the center the scar, like a white eye in her palm.

"Mom! I'm getting cold!"

Pamela leapt up, the sandy image brushed to invisibility on her skirt.

Karen stood in the center of the laundry room, surrounded by her wet clothes, wrapped in a towel. Her look spoke reproach, eyebrows lowered, lips pushed out, as though she was posing for a book on facial expressions. Pamela knelt in front of her, rubbing her damp hair with the loose end of the towel. Karen held her expression until her mother wiped her face, revealing smiling eyes, nose, mouth. Karen put her arms around her mother's neck, head on her shoulder, as Pamela dried her back. Sand, dried and brushed away by the towel, drifted around the room.

** ** **

Helen picked up her hat, perched it carefully on her head, and settled the half veil before her eyes. The fine, loosely knitted threads of the veil cast a faint obscurity over her brown eyes, already darkened by their deep setting in her face. Several wisps of her fine brown hair had escaped their chignon, and the hat. Helen tucked them up, looking at herself uncritically in the hall mirror.

"Pamela? Are you ready?"

Pamela's muffled response fell down the stairs. Helen could imagine her daughter answering through her sweater as she struggled to pull it on.

"I'll be right down!"

Pamela would now be in the bathroom, hastily dragging a brush through hair that, already brushed once, had been displaced by the sweater.

At last Helen heard her daughter's step on the stairs, and turned to the door. In the living room, just off the front hall, Richard was sleepily establishing his sunday nest. Still dressed in pajamas, bathrobe and slippers, he had brought a cup of coffee and a box of Kix from the kitchen. His version of the body and the blood, Helen thought. Tugging Pamela's sweater straight, brushing the bangs out of her eyes, Helen could hear him, out of sight now but visible still to her mind's eye, turning on the television, adjusting the aerial for reception, finding the channel for the first of his sunday ball games.

"Ready?"

"Mhmm."

"Ok, honey, let's go."

Pamela's face always seemed so bright on the way to church, not reflecting the light, but absorbing and re-emitting it in some clearer shade.

The Valiant waited for them in the driveway. Helen wished it could live up to its name, but it was notoriously cranky in the mornings. The dent she had given it, in the bumper, just below the right headlight, gave it a vague, squint-eyed expression. The early June sun had wakened it early, it appeared, as it started on the second request and coughed only a little before settling into its usual rough breathing.

Helen found her favorite space, one of the collection angling in to the small grove of redwood and fern that occupied the middle of the church lot. After getting out, Helen and Pamela stood for a moment, looking at the image of St. Francis and his birds that stood below a small gable in the center of the grove.

The colors of the image, in the shade, blended so well with the red-brown and dusty green of the trees and ferns that one could easily miss it altogether. Pamela had discovered it one sunday, when she was four, excitedly pointing it out to Helen, who had always known it was there.

Pamela reached into her pocketbook for the seeds she'd collected in the back yard, and tossed them into the duff at the feet of the statue. They were always gone when she and her mother returned after the service. The church organ began the processional hymn, and Helen and Pamela hurried for the doors.

Despite their tardiness, Pamela's favorite seat was still unoccupied. Helen and Pamela genuflected and then excused themselves past several other parishioners down to the end of the pew, below the stained glass rendering of St. Francis. Sunlight through the brown, corded, translucent glass of the monk's robes cast Pamela's hair into a helmet of bronze. Helen watched her, sidelong, as she knelt, saying her opening prayer.

As she recited her prayer, instead of closing her eyes, Pamela stared at the light, caught between her folded hands, pale golden light that had passed through one of the doves that fluttered around St. Francis feet.

In the foyer, Helen stopped to thank Father Pete for his sermon. Her right hand, which she had held out to him, lay between his two like a sparrow Pamela had rescued from a cat. The sparrow had been too confused to fly, but it struggled to get away from her. If it had it would surely have been caught again, the cat was sitting nearby, watching, waiting for its next chance. Pamela had walked away with the sparrow, followed by the cat's gaze, to the far side of the chicken coop. It flopped around for a moment in the dust, then lay staring at her, breathing rapidly. Pamela watched until it recovered its equilibrium and flew off. The cat was searching about in the grass, where it had last had the sparrow. Helen drew her hand back to her purse.

"Pamela is getting old enough for sunday school," Father Pete was saying. "We have a new class beginning in two weeks. Would you like that, Pamela?"

Pamela stared at Father Pete's hands.

"She's shy, Father."

"Well, Mrs. Pete is very good with children. Would you enjoy learning about Jesus and all the saints, Pamela?"

"Yes, Father," Pamela answered. "Will we learn about St. Francis?"

"Ah, of course, St. Francis, the disciples, and Jesus, and everybody. Would you like that?"

"Yes, Father."

"Good girl." Father Pete placed his hand on Pamela's head, just the fingers, a little to one side. "You'll go to sunday school, and your mother will attend the service, and then you'll meet again afterwards for tea and cookies. That'll be fun, won't it?"

Pamela nodded her head under Father Pete's hand, thinking about the stained glass of St. Francis.

** ** **

At her desk in the classroom, Pamela thought about St. Francis in the shade. Helen and Pamela had arrived earlier than usual. There had been no time to look at the statue, Pamela had to be taken to the church's classroom before Helen went in for the service. Pamela opened her pocketbook, to look at her collection of seeds, the long feathery ones from the grasses, the flat, black, angular ones from the blue weeds, the ones she had collected for the first time that morning, roundish, smooth and grey, from the tiny pea-pods that were strung like charms along a green vine.

Mrs. Pete surveyed the latest collection of children seated at the desks in the church classroom, scattered loosely around the room, a flock of lambs, she thought.

"Good morning, boys and girls. My name is Mrs. Pete. The very first thing I'd like us to do is to tell each other our names." Mrs. Pete sat down in a chair at the front of the room. "Let's start with you. You're Mrs. Williams boy, aren't you?" A slicked down mop of blond hair nodded. "Well, why don't you tell us your name?"

"Bobby."

"Well, hello, Bobby. Welcome to the class."

"Thank you missus Pete."

Pamela ran a finger through the seeds. Some of the grass seeds, whose feathers were pointing the other way, grabbed at her finger like tiny claws.

"And how about you, what's your name?"

"Leslie Menton."

"Well, hello, Leslie. Welcome to the class."

Mrs. Pete pushed at her hair. It felt as though it were falling down, though she had sprayed it firmly. But it seemed to be in place, presenting an unbroken surface to her searching fingers. She turned to the next child.

"Hello, back there, won't you come and join us up here in front?"

The boy rose awkwardly, perhaps trying to find some way to hide the fact that his mother had dressed him in short pants. Both socks were pooled at the tops of his shoes.

"That's better. And what is your name?"

"Bobby, ma'am."

"Oh, how nice, another Bobby. Perhaps we'll call you Robert. Would you like that?"

The boy looked up at her, trusting and, somehow, hopeless.

"Shall we call you Robert?"

"Yes, thank you, missus Pete."

Between her fingers Pamela held one of the smooth grey seeds. It felt alive, as though, if she pressed it too hard, it would leap away, back to its fellows, or perhaps up, out of her pocketbook, to get lost somewhere in this room. Pamela hoped there would be enough time, after church, to put them out for the birds. But she would never know if the birds had come for them.

"That's a lovely sweater. Did you mother make that for you?"

Pamela looked up at Mrs. Pete, her hand still inside her purse. "Yes ma'am."

"And what's your name, dear?"

"My name is Pamela Harris."

"Well, hello to you, Pamela, and welcome to the class."

"Thank you."

The last boy would be trouble, Mrs. Pete could see it in his fidgeting; picking at his buttons, shrugging his shoulders to watch his tie, caught by the front of his jacket, bunching up and relaxing.

"And last but not least, what's your name? Don't you want to come over here with the rest of us?"

A mumble that was certainly "no."

"I'm sorry, you're so far away, I couldn't quite hear your name."

"Anton."

"Why, that's a lovely name, Anton. Did you know that Anton is another form of the name Anthony?"

Another mumble.

"Well, welcome to the class, Anton. Now, how many of you know the Lord's Prayer?" Not Anton, of course, and Robert is probably too embarrassed to admit it. Not surprising that both of the girls do. And Bobby too. "That's very good, Bobby. And Leslie and Pamela too, very good. What we're going to do now is to help Robert and Anton to learn the Lord's Prayer. Bobby, do you want to start it for us?"

Pamela bowed her head. She put the seed into her mouth. It felt larger in there, and the smooth coat made it slide easily across the roof of her mouth, across her teeth. It had no taste. Pamela wondered if birds really liked seeds, or if they might rather have some bread or a cookie. She decided she would save them something from the tea and cookies, to make up for their missing breakfast.

"That's very good, Bobby. And will you continue, please, Leslie?"

"Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil ..."

"That's just fine, Leslie. Now, Pamela, will you finish for us?"

"Yes ma'am." Pamela swallowed.

"Well, go right ahead dear."

"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. For ever and ever. Amen."

"Amen. That's right. Now, lets all say Amen together, shall we? One, two, three ... A-men. Very good."

Pamela closed her pocketbook. Helen stood in the door of the classroom, looking in.

"Well, wasn't that fun," Mrs. Pete said, standing up. "You must be Pamela's mother, she looks just like you."

Helen nodded.

"Well, I was very impressed with Pamela. She already knows her Lord's Prayer, didn't you dear."

Pamela nodded.

"Well, we'll see you next sunday, dear. Oh, hello Mrs. Williams. Here's Bobby." Mrs. Pete waved to Mrs. Williams, standing behind Helen, urging Pamela along toward her mother's outstretched hand.

In the parking lot, pausing to look at St. Francis, Helen helped her daughter to distribute her offering at the saint's feet.

"Did you have a good time, honey?"

Pamela shrugged her shoulders and tossed another handful of seeds.

"You don't have to go, if you don't want to."

"No, it's okay."

"Did you like Mrs. Pete?"

Pamela hunched her shoulders and said "yeah."

"I really liked sunday school when I was a girl. We learned so many nice things; about Jesus, and the disciples, and the saints. I think you'll get to like it more."

Helen took Pamela's hand and turned back to look at the statue, with the scattering of seeds about its feet.

"Do you think the birds will come, mommy?"

"Oh, of course, honey. Of course they'll come. The birds always come to St. Francis."

** ** **

Pamela pulled the tee-shirt over Karen's head, then pulled her still damp hair out of the collar. She could feel Karen's chilled skin through the thin cloth and silently berated herself

"Ok, let's go."

"Mom!"

"Come on, no whining, nap time."

"Yeah."

Karen let her head drop forward, the hair of her bangs hanging in front of her eyes like a ragged curtain. Her bare feet slapped against the linoleum in the kitchen.

"You had to take naps when you were six, huh?"

"Yes."

"Did you like it?"

"Sometimes."

"But not all the time, huh?"

"No, not always."

"Me neither."

"Is this one of the don't like it times?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"What good are naps, mom?"

Pamela tucked the blanket under Karen's chin. Karen's blue eyes stared up at her, the question in them mixed with a faint hope of reprieve. Pamela lay down next to her daughter and stared up at the ceiling.

"I don't know, honey. Maybe they aren't always good for anything. Maybe you're old enough not to need one anymore."

"I think you're right."

"I'll think about it, ok? For now will you have a nap anyway?"

Karen sighed, "Yeah, okay."

"Okay. I promise I'll think about it."

"Okay."

Pamela turned to kiss her daughter's forehead, then stood and walked to the door.

"Sleep tight, honey."

"Okay."

Pamela noticed the psalter, in her skirt pocket, banging against her thigh as she walked down the hall.

** ** **

Grass and weeds filled the yard in a dense mat, over which blue and yellow flowers floated like sunlight on water, with bees humming in waves among them. Tall grass hung over the threshold of the chicken coop, even, from the shade beneath, growing through the spaces between the floor boards. Last summer's dusty path from the back door could be seen in the denseness of the weeds that seemed to prefer the packed earth.

The broom stood in the corner where Pamela had left it the last day before school started. Willow leaves and dried catkins, sifted by the ragged roof shingles, carpeted the floor and the altar. In one corner, beneath a remnant chicken perch, a thick layer of black-flecked white testified to the pigeons that had been roosting there. And in the eaves Pamela could see, by the hanging twigs and grass, bound by bleached blue threads, that they had built a nest.

Pamela brushed the duff from the crates and swept the floor. From the shoe box she removed the sheet and candles. A stain of wax, where the candles had laid, penetrated the folds of cloth with diminishing circles of red. She spread the sheet over the crates and set the candles on the two darkest spots. The cross of weeds and grass, now only shades of grey, still hung from its fraying ribbon.

Pamela knelt before the altar. The ribs of her corduroy pants pressed into the depressions of soft summer wood between the hard winter grain of the floor boards. She took the psalter out of her pocket and laid it on the floor beside her. The early sun had not yet found the cross through the shingles. She remembered her mother, in her Sunday church suit, grey, the skirt hanging below her knees, the jacket, the small grey hat with its half veil.

My sisters the birds, you are much obliged to God your creator, in every place you praise him. He gave you liberty to fly, and has clothed you in twofold and threefold raiment. He preserved your seed in the ark. You are obliged to Him for the sky which he has appointed for you.

First one pigeon, then the second came flapping noisily into the coop. Surprised by the small figure kneeling on the floor they frantically adjusted their flight path, from the usual easy swoop through the door and up to the perch. Alight, they shifted nervously on the old wooden dowel that had been so rarely used by the chickens, stepping from side to side, cooing.

You sow not, neither do you reap, yet God feeds you and gives you rivers and fountains to drink, and mountains and valleys for your refuge. Clearly your Creator loves you. My sisters the birds, help me, guard me from the sin of ingratitude, help me to be ever mindful, to give praise to God.

As soon as the first pigeon jumped up under the eaves, into the space by the nest, the young began craning their necks, their mouths open, like tiny chalices, waiting to be filled. The smallest, pushed to the back by its larger siblings, struggled up onto the edge of the nest. Then, slowly, like molten wax building at the edge of a candle, it tipped backward, spilling from the nest, fluttering to the floor, followed by wisps and drips of grass and weed stems.

The rustling in the nest, and the dull sound of the small body against the floor roused Pamela from her prayer. The small bird, half fledged, struggled vainly in the corner. Pamela looked up from it to the nest, where the adult pigeons looked down, for a moment, with their wide eyes, before turning away to hide themselves under the eave.

Pamela knelt down in the corner, picked up the chick, and placed it in the nest of cloth scraps she kept in her shoe box. It's too young, she thought, too young to be taken from its parents. In the apparent security of the shoe box, the young bird was straining upward again with its mouth open. Pamela had nothing to give it.

Pamela set the shoe box on the floor, then removed the candles from the altar and placed them by the box. She carefully folded the faded blue sheet, the same way she'd folded it the last time, the red wax stains falling against each other, and placed that next to the box also. She turned one of the vegetable crates on end, tucking it tightly into the corner under the pigeons perch. The second crate, still on its side, she placed next to the first, forming a crude stair to where she thought she'd be able to reach the nest.

With the shoe box in one arm, steadily, careful not to disturb the chick, she stepped up onto the first crate. The thin boards flexed beneath her feet and she reached, frantically, without looking, her eyes on the chick, out to the wall with her free hand. Her palm met the broken end of a rusted nail. She could feel the roughness penetrating her skin, finding its way through the muscles and tendons of her hand. She froze, her fingers pressed against the boards of the wall, while the pain burned through her, then began to ebb.

When she felt steady again she pulled her hand, slowly, away from the wall, until only her fingertips touched, keeping her balance. She stepped up onto the second crate. The eave, with the nest tucked into it, stood just above her eyes. Leaning against the wall, the shoe box clutched in her left arm, she removed the chick, careful not to let the blood from her palm stain it, and raised it up, into the darkness beside the nest. She could feel the movement of the others, the thoughtless straining of the open mouths, the nervous fluttering of the parents.

The adult birds pecked at her hand, at her fingers. The wild pecking drummed at the wound in her palm. Pamela stepped back, to the edge of the crate which began, slowly, to tremble. The blue threads, woven into the nest, caught Pamela's eye, receding, fading, as she fell, slowly, backward, into darkness.

** ** **

Pamela pulled the psalter out of the pocket of her dress. She opened it at the passage marked by the frayed ribbon. The ribbon had twisted. She straightened it, smoothing it down on the page, and closed the book again. She found a place for it on the bookshelf at the foot of the stair. In the quiet of the afternoon she could hear Karen, upstairs, humming to herself.

Pamela stepped out onto the front porch. Across the street she could see Mr. Bernard working in his garden. The yellow afternoon sun turned the worn grey boards of the steps a pale golden color. Away to her right Pamela heard a cawing. She looked up to watch a raven disappear over the roof.