Above the moon earth rises, a sunlit mossy stone,
a garden that God prizes, where life has richly grown,
an emerald selected for us to guard with care,
an isle in space protected by one thin reef of air.
The mossy stone is grieving, its tears are bitter rain.
The garden is unleaving, and all its harvests wane.
The emerald is clouded, its luster dims and fades,
the isle of life is shrouded in thick and stagnant haze.
O listen to the sighing of water, sky and land
and hear the spirit crying the future is at hand.
The moss and garden thinning portend a death or birth,
the end or new beginning for all who live on earth.
A death if hearts now harden, a birth if we repent
and tend and keep the garden as God has always meant:
to sow without abusing the soil where life is grown
to reap without our bruising this sunlit mossy stone.