Spring (poem)

#spring #poem #prayer #worship #lent #easter

When I walk
I can feel that we are too heavy
Quietly, the earth bends her back
Beneath the weight of things
Too weary to watch
As men cast their fishing lines into sky
Shove stars into pockets
Steal and sell
What is left of her

Men have captured waters
And winds
Drawn lines across forests and mountains and deserts
War is so simple
And so loud

Listen
The ground is trying to breathe again

Overhead, birds flap into formation
And the monarch is on its way home
A fluttering mass of delicate orange wings

The frozen lake moans and opens itself up
fields forgive the fire
and the heavy snow
and the farmer

I am reminded that there is nothing
Wrong with breaking
With turning up palms to find
That your hands are empty

In our willingness to collapse
The body may be rebuilt
with something stronger

This is where the wildflowers grow
Where we can hear the wind coming
before we can feel it
and we begin to see God
everywhere

Gabrielle Worley, a member of First United Church, Oak Park, Illinois, serves as a Global Mission Intern with the Armenian Protestant community, Yerevan, Armenia.