June 2009

The Grass

1 Peter: For all flesh is as grass, and all its glory is as a flower in the grass.

Grass crowds between trees and rocks, heals scars, clothes nakedness, a green adornment for the fertile earth

The wilderness of its roots ties the loam to the planet.

In thousands of summers the grass lays down the soils of subsistence.

It has worked its will, preceding us by billions of years, spreading a carpet for our entry, gardens for our feasting.

Sister to the sea, the grass sways on yellow prairies, on water and land, the one wave-movement of the wind.

Leave the prairies uncut by plows, Eden for bison and antelope, those horned and hooved citizens of the cities of grass.

We nibble the succulent tips, lying idly in summer fields.

We sorted out the grasses of wheat and barley to strew our fields, prophesying the abundance of bread, establishing a partnership with plants and animals.

Scythes sing songs of grass, those early tools, jawbones of deer with teeth of stone, reaping harvest in the fields of wild grain, harbingers of the prosperity to come.

Leaves of grass feed the cattle.

Chomping herds favor us with milk and cheeses.

Ears of grass feed our mouths.

The grass feeds us all.

The grass lawns the cemeteries of our leave-takings, holding the rains above us in the everlasting night.

by the Rev. Kenneth L. Patton (1911-1994) from his book Songs of Simple Thanksgiving: The Unitarian Universalist Association Meditation Manual for 1978. A Universalist humanist, during his time as minister of the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston, MA and as minister of the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, New Jersey, Patton wrote and published large quantities of worship material.