SCRITTURA WEDNESDAY POETRY PROMPT

Hear the Flower’s Plea

Prayer to blossoms and trees for reclaimed souls

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

for Mary

Hail Mary Turner, mother of three
full of grace, courage, and dignity,
I pray your Lord of Lords is with thee,
bless your womb, root-to-leaf, divine tree,
exalt the earth with your fruited seed,
find peace with Us in your hour of need,

holiest Mary, heiress of Earth,
hear the flower’s plea for your rebirth,
grow above lessons of faceless woe,
drinking your fill of the love we sow

with faith, tilling, tending by moonlight
this fertile ground of yours by birthright.

For Mary Turner and her unborn child. (Trigger warning: Graphic violence that actually happened. To learn of Mary’s story is to know despair at our humanity’s capacity for wickedness, cruelty, and unchecked barbarism, but her story is essential. If you can bear it, I gently encourage you to learn more about her.)

I came across Mary Turner’s story entirely by accident, and for the better part of a few weeks, the ghosts of…