The days are cold and brown,
Brown fields, no sign of green,
Brown twigs, not even swelling,
And dirty snow in the woods.
But as the dark flows in
The tree frogs begin
Their shrill sweet singing,
And we lie on our beds
Through the ecstatic night,
Wide awake, cracked open.
There will be no going back.
When one views the planet Earth from outer space and sees no national boundaries, the prophecy of Teilhard de Chardin is compelling:
The age of nations is past. That task before us, if we would not perish, is to build the earth ... to help hear her wounds.