Tuesday 21 August 2007

Prayer for sustainable agriculture

"The silver rain
The golden sun
The fields where scarlet poppies run
And all the ripples of the wheat
Are in the bread that we do eat.

So, when we sit for every meal
And say our grace, we always feel
That we are eating rain and sun
And fields where scarlet poppies run."

Well, if one believes that our bread comes form wheat fields where poppies have not been erradicated by the application of herbicides, this poem cannot do much for the development of sustainable agriculture. But when the sorrow overcomes one that there are no poppies anymore, at least not in the Birtish wheat fields, one might start to search for food that keeps the landscapes we love alive.

P.S. - I found the author of this poem: Alice C. Henderson

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I first heard this poem used as a grace at Emerson College, England, in summer 2007.
Does anyone know the origin of it?

A.S. said...

Hi John,
I also found this poem at Emerson college, summer 2007 :) It was a couple from the US who found it somewhere in Ireland but they didn't knew the author...