The Eucharist Imagined as a Wild Egret

The Eucharist Imagined as a Wild Egret

Alea Peister

Made an uncertain scientist by prayer
I scan a dwindled landscape for a glimpse
of Your presence. Condos and roads encroach 
on the borders of Your home. Holy Preserver
of note-takers, searchers,
people who see — I am still.
I am learning where to look.
I observe Your absence. I wait 
for the white-gold flash of Your wing feathers 
in the periwinkle cold of morning. 
Maybe You will startle me — 
an uprush of flight inches 
from my eyes or
serene, aloft on high, 
You’ll give me time to drink
Your steady, silent flight.
More likely You will appear 
and vanish in a breath’s span. 
The sight of You will catch and pierce me
and I will feed for weeks
on one moment’s glimpse 
of Your body. I will fill notebooks 
with hypotheses, hopes, theories —
will try to catch and hold the quick
step-hop of Your presence
here and gone again
between sheaves of sagebrush
on the chaparral banks of my prayer.

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Alea Peister
Writer & Pilgrim

Alea's writing has been featured in Relief, Solum, The Curator, Vita Poetica, Whale Road Review, and Art for the Isolated. In 2025 she will graduate with an MFA in Spiritual Writing from Seattle Pacific University. You can follow her on Instagram at @alea_peister and Substack at aleapeister.substack.com

Photography by Alina Chernii