When time and place were yet to be, 
Before the primal morn,
The womb of God erupted 
And a universe was born.
Exploding into light and life, 
Begetting sight and sound,
Expanding into nothingness, 
God's will and work - unbound.


And in this growing firmament 
A new world was begun.
It circled, hot and formless 
Around a newborn sun.
Seething, bubbling, groaning, 
A chaos of unlife,
Its body wracked and quaking 
In huge and rending strife.


Through unmarked time, unmeasured years, 
The painful world revolved.
Tormented land and acid sea 
In conflict unresolved.
But by this fiery, labored toil, 
This grinding, endless strife,
A way is made, a bed is laid 
To nest and nurture life.


Then from the vast, unfolding birth, 
God's quick'ning breath is blown - 
Of star mist and of nebulae -
And seeds of life are sown.
Through long, unknown millenia 
The scattered seeds survive,
Transfigure, mutate, modify, 
Evolve, expand and thrive.


Earth-Mother shields and shelters from 
The cold and teeming night,
From comets' cores and meteors 
And sun flares' burning light.
She nurtures, cradles, nourishes, 
Promotes, protects, provides.
She spends herself, She offers all - 
Nothing is denied.


Down through the days She spins within 
Her bubble biosphere.
Slowly, with great care and pain, 
She molds us, year on year.
Until, at last, from Mother Earth 
Another birth begins,
And with it dawns the Age of Man, 
And innocence soon ends.


The dawning of intelligence, 
Of wisdom, wit and wile,
The spawning of malevolence, 
Of pride, deceit and guile.
Contained within these small and fragile frames 
Of bone and blood
Are torrents of destruction, 
Yet seas of growth, of good.


Like children, wild and unrestrained, 
We gorge on Mother's breast.
Uncaring, greedy, ignorant 
In our consuming quest.
We conquer!  Yes, we have it all!  
We gain the brutal prize.
The raping of Earth-Mother - 
The blinding of our eyes.


And yet, some few have eyes as yet 
Unblinded to the loss,
Some few whose spirits sicken 
At the growing, deadly cost.
A few whose voices cry against 
The killing, savage show,
To halt the tide, the suicide, 
The swelling, fatal flow.


At first their cry is all but lost 
Against the deadly tide,
Ignored, rebuffed, yet still they call - 
And will not be denied.
The voices burgeon, grow and swell, 
The message clear and strong,
And now Earth's children hear - 
And know to whom they all belong.


The children's eyes begin to see 
The death that they have sown.
The awful waste, the life - erased -- 
The guilt is their's alone.
They see the ravaged, barren lands, 
Whole species eaten - gone,
The spendthrift ways, the blighted days 
They've set our future on.


At last a new awakening dawns:  
We share a common soul!
At last a true awareness comes:  
The knowledge of our role!
We hold in trust ALL future life, 
Earth-Mother's and our own.
She holds in us - beloved sons and daughters - 
Finally grown.






Copyright © 1992 by Gerry Edwards