"If the Earth were small" by Olaf Skarsholt

If the earth
were only a few feet in
diameter, floating a few feet above a
field somewhere, people would come from
every where to marvel at it. People would walk
around it marveling at its big pools of water, its little
pools and the water flowing between the pools. People
would marvel at the bumps on it, and the holes in it, and they
would marvel at the very thin layer of gas surrounding it and the
water suspended in the gas. The people would marvel at all the
creatures walking around the surface of the ball, and in the water.
The people would declare it precious because it was the only one,
And they would protect it, so that it would not be hurt. The ball
would be the greatest wonder known, and people would come
to behold it, to be healed, to gain knowledge, and to know
beauty and to wonder how it could be. People would love
it, and defend it with their lives, because they would
somehow know that their lives, their own
roundness, could be nothing without it.
If the earth were only a few
feet in diameter.

The Peace of Wild Things - Wendell Berry

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


 — Wendell Berry

I see his blood upon the rose

This poem was in today's Earth Ministry newsletter. You can find Earth Ministry at www.earthministry.blogspot.com

The poem is: I See His Blood Upon the Rose by Joseph Plunkett 

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.