The world is rife with life, brimming with beauty.
Winter, with its bleak and blunt reminders of death,
grips on and on,
groans with its last grating cry,
as it dies, dies, dies.
Clustered around the dry stalks and forgotten leaves,
groups of green things flutter forth.
Delicate with dew, they hold more strength than they show.
Life is stronger than it knows,
stronger when it grows,
because it flows from You.
You, the Eternal Live-er,
the Eternal Giver of Life,
Ridder of Strife,
Breather of Peace.
It must be your breath, warm and wet,
that lands upon each blade and stem,
and sparkles in your lovely light.
It must be your song, infinite and various,
always in tune,
that flies across the field,
sounding and surrounding,
bounding and unbinding,
bidding all to rise.
It must be your heart, beating through all,
that bursts the earth with mirth,
full of care and utterly careless,
beckoning to be.
It comes from over, comes from under, comes from within.
We are drenched and we are drowning and we swim.
Life itself courses from the Source,
pouring and outpoured,
and always there is more and ever more.
-Sr. Mary Gemma Harris, T.O.R.
