Poetic prayers – The Green Tau

Bread

A poem on Maundy Thursday, 17th April 2025

Bread

the essential of life:

Toast for breakfast,

Sandwich for lunch –

and, if dainty, afternoon tea too.

A get-me-through the morning

or quick late night snack-

croissant and bagels,

doughnut or pretzels.

A shape for every occasion.

Elaborate or mundane,

Common place or prized,

Unknowingly irreplaceable.

Good bread is true bread

Stone ground and hand kneaded,

Proved and cosseted.

Freshly baked, a yeasty aroma.

Crunchy bite , soft crumb,

a mouth-filling taste.

White or brown –

always a whole meal.

The bread of life –

no life without it!

Blessed and shared –

round a table, round an altar.

Eaten with family,

with friends and with strangers,

all now are ‘com pane ‘ –

with-bread-companions.

Broken and shared,

for those in need

and those who are needy –

the coming together as those in communion.

The bread of life

is life-long life.

Risen and resurrected

Lived and loved

and lived again.

This is the bread of eternity.

A barren land

An endless space of nothingness

Earth and sky.

Swallowed up, fearful of the emptiness.

A breath of wind, stirs the surface.

Rain falls, dampening the ground.

Broken rock glistens,

Stones, gravel shimmer

The bare ground softens.

Greening with mosses and lichens

Seeds soften, split, shoot.

Life grows in unseen cracks

Creeps, spreads.

Roots down and springs up.

Genesis happens.

For trees

Praise be to God for trees:

For shade,

for shelter from the rain

and a break against the wind.

Praise be to God for trees:

For leaves that embrace the sun,

catch up the CO2,

and release a breath of oxygen.

Praise be to God for trees:

For limbs and branches

that file away the carbon,

stored up for another day.

Praise be to God for trees:

For deep roots anchored in the soil,

fastening down the soil

and drawing up the water.

Praise be to God for trees:

A takeaway stall of diverse fruits,

nuts and berries,

and sugary sap.

Praise be to God for trees:

A nesting place, and a resting place

for a menagerie of dwellers –

bees and butterflies, bats and beetles,

owls and badgers –

and maybe too for me.

Waves:

The gentle to and fro of the wave,

back and forth,

soothing,

gently rocking,

Loving God, calm us, and

move us as peace-makers.

The persistence of the wave,

never stopping,

never quitting,

gradually wearing down all resistance

Loving God, sustain us, and

make us a force for good.

The power of the wave,

building up,

growing in size,

acquiring energy as it moves

Loving God, strengthen us, and

harness our energy to do what is right.

The breaker, poised but still moving,

ready to break –

to break out, to break up,

to break forth

Loving God, contain us, and

prepare us to spill out into the world.

The crest of the wave, exploding,

releasing energy

that breaks down barriers

and undermines obstructions

Loving God, free us, and

use us to reform the structures of the world.

Storm wave, tidal wave,

tsunami,

that brokers no discussion,

that overwhelms all

Loving God, override us,

and free the world from its own vices.

Amen.

The whale that keeps on giving

The wide vast oceans,

tropical balm and arctic chill,

teem with living things

great and small

And here dwells the whale –

God’s tiller of the sea –

formed to frolic in its deeps

and traverse its lengths.

From an infinitesimal nil

to 200 tonnes of mammalian flesh,

its life spans a century full.

A life of daily gorging and expurgating 10,

nay, 20 tonnes of krill

replenishes the seas with iron,

and spins once more

the phytoplankton’s oxygen giving,

carbon absorbing wheel.

From the depths the whale

redistributes food,

sustaining small fry

that dare not dive so deep.

Migrating between distant poles

and warmer summer seas,

the whale spreads the bounty

of each mouthful it digests

and spins once more

the global food chain’s thread.

Under the whale’s ocean watch,

krill and plankton multiply,

and so God’s worker feeds

5000 mouths and more.

Its leviathan frame

a maritime conveyor belt

of sequestered carbon

that gracefully sweeps the seas

till finally at whale fall

it sinks to rest –

a carbon store

for evermore

upon the ocean bed.

Skip and Skitter

Now is the sky blue!

Now is it framed

by a fretwork of branches

where leaves still linger –

some as big as dinner plates

some as small as butterflies.

Jackdaws riddle the earth

harvesting riches that lay below.

And squirrels skip and skitter

their autumn dance.

All is now, and now, and now!

But tomorrow, next week, next year?

Merciful God will they still be there?

Will our apathy,

our slowness to act,

our aversion to change

allowed all this

to be threatened,

diminished, and

evicted from life?

Have mercy.

But not just mercy –

rather prod us, prompt us,

push us into action.

Renew our hearts and minds,

reverse our expectations

so that we change the future

and once more

be restorers of creation.

Amen.

This prayer or psalm gives a seasonal update to one written in the summer