Mother And Child

The silence of the man she loved
Said all she had to know:
No words could take her heart to where
It was destined to go.

With a faith that dwarfed the mountains
Rising all around her, she
Rose up from where her baby lay
With the dust for company;

And she ran to the nearest hill she saw,
Climbed up and looked around
For the faintest hint of a caravan
Or the source of the slightest sound,

Then down she ran and stopped a while
Where the baby kicked and cried,
To rush up another hill that stood
Way off on the other side.

She peered again through the scorching heat
For the smallest sign of life,
Then on she ran with the firm and strong
Resolve of a prophet's wife.

And thus she searched, and so she ran
Till her heels wept streams of blood,
As the infant cried and kicked the sand
When his heels discovered mud,

And the waters gushed and sprung up wild
While the mother rushed to her crying child;
How they washed themselves and drank their fill
And she nursed the babe till their hearts went still

In the burning desolation
Of that strange and barren land,
Rose a faith that raised a nation:
This amazing mother and

Her child.