When the weeping of the nations
fills our hearts with holy dread,
when a devastated city
cannot bury all its dead,
God is in the conflagration,
crying where our children bled.
Dust will settle on the dying
cradled in a mother’s arms,
fearful faces meet the camera
knowing human hatred harms,
knowing only humane kindness
brings the peace that heals, disarms.
God remove our warring blindness,
give us grace that we might see
through the mists of mortal malice
how we fuel life’s agony,
how inaction, sullen silence,
marks our own complicity.
© Andrew Pratt 9/9/2016
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