This is our mother, the source of all being, sharpening starlight, then raising the dawn, singing forth sunshine, then playing with laughter, scattering teardrops, in passion newborn. Mother of oceans, so careful with splendour, ground of creation and centre of life, love in abundance, all caring, all seeing, counter to conflict, now staying our strife. This is our mother, the God of our parents, source of the hope that has brought them to be, present to hold us, then leading us onward, loving, renewing, and setting us free. Andrew Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2006 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.. 11 10 11 10 Tunes: WAS LEBET WAS SCHWEBET; EPIPHANY HYMN
Tag: mother
A still small voice, the crumbling earth lies silent – a poem after a devastating earthquake.
A still small voice, the crumbling earth lies silent - a poem after a devastating earthquake.
A still small voice, the crumbling earth lies silent,
a baby suckled at her mother’s breast,
feels flesh grow cool as she lies quietly dying,
no comfort now, no warmth, no earthly rest.
And where is God amid this dust, these ashes?
Is this God’s plan, this random, rancid death?
Where is the blessing in these crumbling buildings
where silent bodies drew a final breath?
The dust, a pall, obscures the teasing sunrise.
See, dawn’s temptation to arise, to wake.
But this dishonest call is, empty, hollow
to any who’ve survived this this night, this quake.
What now? The still, small voice still quietly questions:
there is no consolation for this pain,
but mid the dust and rubble of this carnage,
humanity might rise in hope again.
©Andrew Pratt 7/2/2023
The day after the earthquakes in Turkey, Syria and the surrounding regions.
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