Spirit of love
That flows against our flesh
Sets it trembling
Moves across it as across grass
Erasing every boundary that we accept
And swings the doors of our lives wide—
This is a prayer I sing:
Save our perishing earth!
Spirit that hears each one of us,
Hears all that is—
Listens, listens, hears us out—
Inspire us now!
Our own pulse beats in every stranger’s throat,
And also there within the flowered ground
beneath our feet,
And—teach us to listen!—
We can hear it in water,
in wood, and even in stone.
We are earth of this earth,
and we are bone of its bone.
This is a prayer I sing, for we
have forgotten this and so the
earth is perishing.
–Barbara Deming, prayer 570 in Singing the Living Tradition
