by Malcolm Guite
Sing a song of sowing Carrying the seed A song of hopeful planting To meet a future need Sing a song of letting go And falling to the ground Of burying that feels like loss Still waiting to be found
There are no songs of famine Hunger has no voice The poor must scavenge what they can While the rich are spoiled for choice The stones of fear and anger Will strike you from behind Hunger hates the stranger And cleaves to his own kind
Sing a song of exile Loneliness and loss A song of broken bridges Nobody can cross A song of desperation For a word you can understand A song of fearful labour On someone else’s land
Then sing a song of marriage The grace of bride and groom The fruitful vine around the door Joy within the room A song of love and longing For the children yet to be A quiver-full of future hopes Aimed at eternity
Sing a song of mourning The shadows and the tombs The bitterness of broken hearts And disappointed wombs Sing a song of empty words And unexpressed despair Of reaching out at midnight For the one who isn’t there
Sing a song of waiting Weeping on the earth A song of expectation Longing for new birth Sing a song of patience Of watching through the night Sing those hours before the dawn Then sing the coming light
Sing a song of harvest Of one who bind the sheaves And one who gleans along the edge The good another leaves Sing a song of winnowing And taking into store Of Barley heaped like glowing gold All on the threshing floor
Sing out before the Lord of Life Your songs of joy and pain Sing of the years the locusts ate That cannot come again Sing to Him your hopes and fears Your tales of right and wrong And He will make your voice a part Of His Redemption Song