In the `90’s, when my world was struggling to find its place after the death of our middle son a few years earlier, the bigger world outside of me seemed only to reflect what I was working on. And in the midst of my struggles, I wrote The Whole World Is Looking For A Mother. I am certain there are others who feel like I did that day when I wrote this poem. Tell me what you think.
Pray to me, Almighty God,
and send a mother to mother
this barren earth,
these orphaned children striving to stand
with no one to lean on.
Pray to me.
For I tire. I tire.
Senseless equations keep pestering me,
seeking sums I cannot decipher,
for too many zeroes I neither
can articulate nor posture.
Debits and assets, we have the former
in trillions but the assets hide
from Thee and Me. I do not see them.
Do Ye?
Except hidden in the child’s eyes,
in the smile, in the groping of hands,
trying to find each other.
Except in the autumn I now sit in,
rain saturated, leaves clinging to roads
and sidewalks as slippery as comfrey.
Except in the foaming earth
giving off an elixir to intoxicate me
into still thinking I can make a difference.
Pray to me, Great God
that I may be ignited
with a fire yet to burn brightly,
that I may see my commitments
straight through to their resurrection
and mine.
That I may yet see a glorious dawning
of a day where the acts of my days
will prove again the reflected glory
of God in Earth.
I pray, still, send a mother,
fresh from the Cosmic Bosom to lean on,
not tired.
5 responses to “The Whole World Is Looking For A Mother”
from Sally, (with permission) Your despair and yearning to heal comes through clearly in this poem. I like it very much.
I hear your sadness and a trying to make sense of the world and then…hope, in the wonder of a child, the scent of the earth, a questioning of faith. It is really lovely Veronica.
Terri, thank you for commenting. You read with your heart.
I believe there are so many more people who can relate to this poem than we might think. Even I who have never had a child can relate in the idea of the many injustices of being alive and the comfort that is so necessary to continue living.
Maria, years ago I wrote a poem saying I put out my hand to grasp and find instead my own being grasped. Everyone needs to lean sometime. Thank you for commenting.