Churching Lament: a poem by Thomas Seán Purdy

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Churching Lament

Original illustration by Sally McKenna

Who will place quartz crystals

Into the cold palms of young mothers

Who have not been blessed

Nor lived long enough

To see their infants toddle?

Though their grave markers lie flat

Beneath the dewy compost

Of years and seasons past

While headstones and monuments rise

With fortified privilege all around,

Pray the moonbeams find

The bony clenched hands of those

That turned Pain and Faith into Joy

And reflect Mercy’s blessings

To guide and light their journeys

To the Everlasting.