In honour of all our fellow beings and to commemorate St. Francis Day:
For anteaters and ants, Abdulali’s Wrinkled Frog and Abe’s Salamander
Let us pray to the Lord
For all the birds of the air, buffalo that once filled the plains
for bees and their dances, for blue butterflies of our childhoods
Let us invoke the Goddess
For cattle incarcerated in mega-dairies, for cows with udders scraping the ground,
for kind eyes of heifers and ebullience of bullocks
Let us beg for forgiveness
For dogs in their dogginess
wolves, coyotes, hyenas, hairless Mexican dogs, dogs on the streets with the homeless, dogs by the hearth, at our heels with hearts full of love
Let us give thanks and praise
For elephants with their graveyards and tears, tenderness and listening feet
Let us be reverent and learn
For foxes, encroaching on cities, in dens in the woods,
for foxes, running in terror from the hounds
for foxes, fat-brushed and burnished in the field at dawn
Let us acknowledge complexity
For the forty endangered species of Galapagos Land Snail –
bulimulus adelphus, bulimulus darwinii, bulimulus nux, bulimulus wolfi, et cetera
Let us wonder at Gaia
For wild horses, unshod, untamed, untethered, galloping over the moor
Let us stand in admiration and awe
For horses with bit, bridle and saddle, whip, jump and stable
Let us hang our heads in shame
For the ibex, ibis, impala, iguana and iguanodon
Let us stop being an ‘I’ and turn into ‘we’
For the jaguar alone in the empty forests of Guyana
Let us provide food and shelter
For the kangaroo, her pouch and her joey, her bounce and her boing
For the koala beloved of children, for the kith and kin of the animals
Let us smile unto the Lord
For the lionness and ladybird, the locust and limpet, for the lark and his joyful song
Let us sing … [sing] ‘All you need is love .. All you need is love … All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.
For the Manx cat and maned wolf, mandrill and marsh deer
Let us revere the earth our mother, and all the mothers that gave us life
For the nuthatch in the garden
Let us see the miracle of small things
For the sight of an otter sliding slick as a shadow in the shallows of the rich river
Let us sigh an Oh! of wonder
For parakeets, parrots, peacocks, pelicans, penguins and peregrine falcons
Let us thank the Goddess for feathered beauty in all its forms
For rabbits, their reproductive vigour, their fluffy tails and soft noses
Let us learn gentleness
For the sixty five thousand animals in danger of extinction
Let us lament them, let us say, no, no, no, no …
For Tyrannasaurus Rex and all his brothers and sisters
Let us never forget
For unicorns and six-legged antelopes, Cheshire cats and dragons
Let us pay heed to our dreams
For the Variegated Spider Monkey, Venezuelan Wood-quail, Velvet Worm and
Visayan Warty Pig
Let us honour them by knowing their names
For the whales, the dolphins, all the cetaceans roaming our oceans, for those in captivity
Let us always choose freedom
For the thud and sudden end of extinction, for the last creature of its kind
Mother Earth, help us make new life
For you, you, you and you,
Let us celebrate the web of creation [join hands]
For the zebra, zumbador, zebu and zho
Let us know endings are beginnings in the circle of life
and remember ant-eaters and ants, Abdulali’s Wrinkled Frog and Abe’s Salamander …
Amen
~ Victoria Field.
Copyright of this poem remains with the author who should be contacted regarding publication other than for personal use. Many thanks to Vicky for allowing us to reprint it.
Victoria Field can be contacted via: http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/victoriafieldpage.shtml
Large White female on buddleia
Meadow Brown and Red Admiral
Thanks to Helen Elliott for the photos of butterflies in her garden.
The featured and following photos are by courtesy of QCA members Ann Johnson – foxes, Nanci Swann – swans, Fiona Owen – Lleucu the border collie; and Sonia Waddell – elephants:
