Let us pray to the One who holds us in the hollow of His hands,
To the One who holds us in the curve of Her arms,
To the One whose flesh is the flesh of hills and hummingbirds and angleworms,
Whose skin is the color of an old Black woman and a young white man;
and the color of the leopard and the grizzly bear and the green grass snake,
Whose hair is like the aurora borealis, rainbows, nebulae, waterfalls, and a spider’s web,
Whose eyes sometime shine like the Evening Star, and then like fireflies,
and then again like an open wound,
Whose touch is both the touch of life and the touch of death,
And whose name is everyone’s, but mostly mine.
And what shall we pray?
Let us say, “thank you.”

— Max Coots

American minister, born June 10, 1927