Dear One, do I perceive that you 
have told this parable against me? 
Have I stolen the seeds of contentment 
from those with whom I am on the way, 
the path that you have laid out 
in crazy paving, gravel, and grass, where joy 
should be in abundance, the hopscotch, 
skip, and jump of children? We swoop 
instead with greedy, beady beaks and raucous crows.

We have scorched the earth, flooding 
your fields with fire; we have pierced 
the body you laid out and choked from it 
black bile; it quakes beneath our power. 

In the beginning, when the soil was planted 
with food and beauty, in your Wisdom, 
choosing your Words carefully, you said 
that it was good; 
good for growing grace and the glory 
of the image of the living reign of heaven.

Dear One, may it be so. 
May we first fall down and be forgiven 
by your good earth, 
by your creative and therefore compassionate 
mercy.

The Gospel reading for Year A Proper 10 includes the parable of the sower and the soil from Matthew 13. Photo credit Gareth Hughes.

This poem-prayer first appeared at https://episcopaljournal.org/confessions-of-a-crow/