Thanks to Life – A Humanist Prayer

This poem needs no description. It is a sort of Humanist prayer that will be sent to Humanists UK and othere Humanist organisations in the hope that some celebrant somewhere might use it before I myself might need it!

Thanks to Life (A Humanist Prayer)

 

When we wend our way through wind-waved wheat

To where any road may footpath meet

Where long-lost lives have set their feet

Give thanks to life for man’s history

 

And where forests shade us tree by tree

Carpets of flowers all creatures see

And hear birdsong in collective glee

Giving thanks to life for its mystery

 

And as we walk beyond that wood

To dwellings where tall trees once stood

Constructed for the common good

Give thanks to the life we’re sharing

 

For none of this world belongs to man

We use what exists as best we can

And pretend to progress according to plan

Giving thanks to life that’s caring

 

By what means do we possess anything?

The dead with them can nothing bring

Even they who would be queen or king

Give thanks to life though they perish

 

When they leave this world, they only leave behind

The thoughts they’ve shared with another mind

Which the dead unto the living bind

Giving thanks to a life they cherish

 

Let’s live our lives to their fullest extent

That they may never be uselessly spent

Amassing things which are only lent

Give thanks for life to the giving

 

The beings that we live among

In which all are harmed when one does wrong

Are the community to which we can all belong

By giving thanks for life to the living