Earth’s Prayer

Dear friends, this is how I would pray
You look upon me.
I had these thoughts while
You were building your temples
Upon my mantle.
A holy site, a holy structure,
God’s temple,
You cannot imagine the insult!
Are my oceans not deep enough
To house all of the gods for you?
Are my trees not numerous enough to serve
as fingers for all your ironic gods?
Does the wind not blow fierce enough
To serve as the echoing
Incantations of a mad howling
God who has her whole life served
You with all her passion and bounty?
How much did it cost to build your temples?
What is their upkeep?
You wash my valleys in your blood
In the name of an absent delinquent God
Who has done nothing for you
Which my rains and fields do not
Do freely all the world around.
You cannot argue about my
Existence or divine form.
I willingly bear your waste,
I’ve been reduced to a mere staging area.
I’ve been accused of housing your Hell,
You’ve made me synonymous with filth and sin
And terror beyond your ability to cope.
You have cursed my womb,
Spat upon my breast;
And yet I’ve made you fat,
I’ve loved you beyond the form of any God
Whose temples you plague me with.
I exist now only as the rotting corpse
Beneath your feet.
Keep your alms,
I want no arms in my name.
I swallow your churches because they are obscene.
I reclaim my stone and mortar,
And the wood of your crucifix.

-Patrick Conners Jr
10/30/11