Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam

Our father, who art in Earth

Deep harrowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom is here enshrined

Among Your people’s lives.

Their every breath is Your life in them

Expressed in clouds of steam

As you breast the hill-crest

Driving on the harnessed team

Here have You dug with them

And tilled the earth

Here have You sowed and reaped

Here the crows have followed You

And raw winds chapped Your hands

Cracking open the skin cutting across your weals.

Here have You stung Your wounds with

Salt tears dropping to your hands.

Here have You painted earth across Your brow

To wipe away the crown of sweat.

This is Your earth and we echo heaven here

You plough us and we coulter into the ground

Breaking up the hard land before the share

Turns us over and folds up the earth

We harvested and gleaned

Have yeast deeply mixed into us

Globe torn asunder by necessary knuckles

Kneading, making us submissive, tearing us apart

Forcing us, like dough, into forms

When we turn the oxen boustrophedon against our neighbour’s fence

And break it down,

You remind us to be gentle with those

who break our fences with their kine.

Keep our eyes fixed on the earth we till

We follow the slopes of our own hills

Making our corn and wheat for you

Laus Deo Semper.