Birthday Prayer: Mother, let me lie in the mud
Mother, You who alone walk the hidden passageways of my heart,
You who sense my every twist and turn,
You who know my littlest truths and subtlest lies,
You who see my most secret desires and lusts naked,
Even ones that I do not dare acknowledge…
Hear me, heed this prayer:
Let my all be taken, returned to the good earth.
Let the slow-burning fires of my many thirsts be quenched.
Let my various hungers cease their endless creeping about the earth
Like sleepless ghouls seeking satiation, saturation.
Let them die unfulfilled
For they are never silenced by fulfilment.
For far too long have my brothers and sisters been cast away into the cold.
The eloquence of this two-legged child who prays too frequently
Makes you deaf to my legless and many-legged brethren
Who suffer and die in silence.
Their hunger and pain, their indignity
As they are driven from their waters and their lands,
Their homes desecrated, torn from their roots in the earth
Are plain to those who see and hear.
Why then are you unmoved, Mother?
Why do you look the other way as life and liberty is taken from them
And the very air and water they breathe is poisoned?
Does their honest quest for life not cry out to you?
Why then does my love of comfort meet with your indulgent smile
Even as my brethren languish
Bereaved, distraught, dispossessed, enslaved
Tearful yet voiceless?
With subtle duplicity, Mother, have I perverted you?
With fine arguments, Mother, have I corrupted you?
With the sweet wine of ingenuity, Mother,
I have intoxicated you, have I not?
With my subtle lust, Mother,
I have seduced you, have I not?
Enough, Mother, relieve me.
Your embrace now feels filthy, release me.
Turn away from me before I turn from you in disgust.
If justice is not the core on which your world is wound
Then your world has a core that is worthless.
If you are not pure gentleness and love, Mother
Then you are worthless and I am dirt.
Mother, hear me, heed my prayer:
Let my all be taken, returned to the good earth.
I can no longer lie in your cozy embrace,
So let me lie in the mud amidst my thousand brothers and sisters
And share the bleakness of their fate.
You who sense my every twist and turn,
You who know my littlest truths and subtlest lies,
You who see my most secret desires and lusts naked,
Even ones that I do not dare acknowledge…
Hear me, heed this prayer:
Let my all be taken, returned to the good earth.
Let the slow-burning fires of my many thirsts be quenched.
Let my various hungers cease their endless creeping about the earth
Like sleepless ghouls seeking satiation, saturation.
Let them die unfulfilled
For they are never silenced by fulfilment.
For far too long have my brothers and sisters been cast away into the cold.
The eloquence of this two-legged child who prays too frequently
Makes you deaf to my legless and many-legged brethren
Who suffer and die in silence.
Their hunger and pain, their indignity
As they are driven from their waters and their lands,
Their homes desecrated, torn from their roots in the earth
Are plain to those who see and hear.
Why then are you unmoved, Mother?
Why do you look the other way as life and liberty is taken from them
And the very air and water they breathe is poisoned?
Does their honest quest for life not cry out to you?
Why then does my love of comfort meet with your indulgent smile
Even as my brethren languish
Bereaved, distraught, dispossessed, enslaved
Tearful yet voiceless?
With subtle duplicity, Mother, have I perverted you?
With fine arguments, Mother, have I corrupted you?
With the sweet wine of ingenuity, Mother,
I have intoxicated you, have I not?
With my subtle lust, Mother,
I have seduced you, have I not?
Enough, Mother, relieve me.
Your embrace now feels filthy, release me.
Turn away from me before I turn from you in disgust.
If justice is not the core on which your world is wound
Then your world has a core that is worthless.
If you are not pure gentleness and love, Mother
Then you are worthless and I am dirt.
Mother, hear me, heed my prayer:
Let my all be taken, returned to the good earth.
I can no longer lie in your cozy embrace,
So let me lie in the mud amidst my thousand brothers and sisters
And share the bleakness of their fate.
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I first posted this on 19th November 2007. This is a re-post.
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