quote · Legacy record
A Short TestamentWhatever harm I may have doneIn all my life in all your wide creationIf I cannot repair itI beg you to repair it,And then there are all the wounded The poor the deaf the lonely and the oldWhom I have roughly dismissedAs if I were not one of them.Where I have wronged them by itAnd cannot make amendsI ask youTo comfort them to overflowing,And where there are lives I may have withered around me,Or lives of strangers far or nearThat I've destroyed in blind complicity,And if I cannot find themOr have no way to serve them,Remember them. I beg you to remember themWhen winter is overAnd all your unimaginable promisesBurst into song on death's bare branches.
A Short TestamentWhatever harm I may have doneIn all my life in all your wide creationIf I cannot repair itI beg you to repair it,And then there are all the wounded The poor the deaf the lonely and the oldWhom I have roughly dismissedAs if I were not one of them.Where I have wronged them by itAnd cannot make amendsI ask youTo comfort them to overflowing,And where there are lives I may have withered around me,Or lives of strangers far or nearThat I've destroyed in blind complicity,And if I cannot find themOr have no way to serve them,Remember them. I beg you to remember themWhen winter is overAnd all your unimaginable promisesBurst into song on death's bare branches.
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Anne Porter
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Historical period not yet established
No sufficiently supported historical placement has been established. Import and download dates are not treated as composition dates. - Recorded source
- Contributor-provided quotation collection
Supplied reference C; CSV row 16580; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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