Written by: Grace Pumpton-Hill

Edited by: Laurence Desjardins

1. The Father

“Oh, God, who does not exist, you hate women, otherwise you’d have made them different. And Jesus, who snubbed your mother, you hate them more.” 

• Edna O’Brien, Girls in Their Married Bliss

“O Father,

Are you listening?

I hope you are…

Eleven and wondering, 

praying in my bed,

hands clasped 

around my childhood stuffie, 

      not together as they should be,

I believed in it more than you,

      before my fingers had found

the formalities of your worship. 

…proud 

of all that I have come to.”

So desperately,

           so early,

did I wish to satisfy you.

Eyes wide, digging through

the darkness of my bedroom,

breath held, 

waiting for your answer,

        met with quiet night.

There was a comfort 

in your silence,

a relief

   or refuge

from my incessant interrogation,

a peacefulness 

in the    anticipation 

of your approval.

It was never your mystery 

that eroded my faith.

“O Father,

will you save me?

Will you take this slicing shame 

and make it repentance?”

Seventeen and hoping, 

praying in the chapel instead.

I never used to visit but I learned to

        like the calm.

It’s a sticky kind of mute, 

seeping in from the walls,

coating the skin,

mouth and lungs

like mucus,      

muffling doubt.

It coaxes me to surrender, 

       relinquish my governance,

   capitulate with my doubt

which asks,

“Why would your salvation

be born of a man?

Do you forget the conception

of your deliverance?”

So, in the quiet of the chapel, 

even my heretic kneels.

Enticed by the irresistible placidity,

    my most 

           dubious 

   divisions 

                     bow down,

and together we pretend 

not to betray our composition,

    we swallow the guilt of submission

     we taste the sweet safety of acquiescence.

“O Father,

do you hate me?

     Under your authority

     can I ever be worthy?”

Nineteen now and seeing

myself through your celestial gaze,

a maker watching 

his design bicker and play,

and I cannot help but think:

How insectile,

              trivial,

                 pitiful.

I used to study the sky,

bug-eyed, beholding

the great scaffolds 

of your kingdom:

sunbeams, 

piercing 

      through

clouds.

But now, staring up 

at your towering heavens 

only reminds me of my smallness.

I squint, and you are just

another ascended 

patriarch, demanding 

worship and propriety.

Distant sovereign,

I can’t say I do not

long to be your subject.

But I can no longer

idly embrace your quiet,

it tastes too much

like candied complicity.

And I am tired

of feeling 

undeserving.

I remember now,

the conceivers

of my deliverance.

And I do not recognize 

them in your scripture.

       The only blasphemy 

was in calling you “father”

when I have not once 

needed that word before.

       It was always your paternity,

       that eroded my faith.

2. The Mother

“And the wind through my fingers / The only God that I know / 

And it does not want me on my knees to believe / Head high, arms wide / 

Aching, aching, aching / And alive”

• Florence + The Machine, Sympathy Magic

But         mother,

You return me to my innocence,

strip my reverence of formalities,

       and underneath,

       a purer faith lies 

       refreshingly bare.

In light of the sparrow’s declarative song

I need not beg for your testimony,

           nor clutch my toys 

in the quiet night

      and pray for your reply,

for I know your being is affirmed 

by the dawn’s recurrence.

           No, you have never been silent.

You call to us

with an audacious promise.

Though I hesitate and fear

your deceit and my

supposed inanity,

my unruly soul

responds.

It reaches out,

the unfurling finger

of a babe, like green limbs

bend to the beckoning of the sun.

Dear         mother,

your call is an invitation 

to equivalence. 

you do not demand

that your creations 

       kneel or abide 

       by arbitrary 

       divine laws,

you do not threaten

your children with

       eternal punishment,

you do not promise 

us freedom and salvation

on the condition 

       of flawless virtue.

And          mother, 

your call is an exhortation

to rise,

    to revel in our creation,

          to realize our own sanctity.

    Perennial potential blooms

at the brush of your thumb,

and as it awakens, 

stretching out

     its leafy appendages,

the sleepy flora recalls 

a dreamed epiphany:

“Life does not

     fall from above,

          It grows from within.” 

Your call is fertilizer

for our childlike imaginations,

       and within us sprouts

       the agency to transform,

or rather, embark 

on a spiritual adolescence.

I look from the sky 

      down at my hands, 

and see my body anew.

I see prospect in the

        creases of my palm, 

sprawling and converging

like the branches of your trees,

    covered in buds

    that beg to be watered

    by a fresh belief. 

    A belief in myself.

Your call is the wind,

one moment a shriek,

its echo ricocheting off mountains,

raking and tearing

through the strands of my soul,

next a hushed whistle,

sifting through fields,

lulling and tending—

I lift my arms, close my eyes,

and with the breeze’s kiss

I am a child again,

and all is possible.

Artist Statement

“The Father” and “The Mother” explore the antithetical experiences that have shaped my idea of faith. I was raised by two mothers, and without a father figure in my life, the word father only ever appeared in Christian prayer. Though I was not brought up religiously, my relationship with God was something I pursued on my own. In “The Father”, the italicization of the word emphasizes its distance from my life and how it exists only as an inward address toward a silent God. My relationship with Christianity mirrored this internalization: private, quiet, and bound by the desire to be seen and approved of by some unreachable figure. When I was younger, I found a comfort and calmness in this containment 

However, I grew to feel ashamed of my desperation for God’s approval. The more I strained toward paternal divinity, the sharper I felt the dissonance between God’s authority and my lived reality. For me, a patriarchal God could not carry the truth of being raised and delivered into the world by two women. Nor could He properly embody women as creators, which in my life is a fundamental truth. Though I still recognize the beauty and merit of Christianity, I could not authentically accept it as my own. Ultimately, the poem traces the erosion of a faith built on shame and conditional love that is unable to honour the miracles of my life. 

In contrast, “The Mother” looks toward a spirituality grounded in the natural world (figures like Mother Nature and Gaia). Where the Christian God felt distant and silent, “The Mother” feels ever-present. Her “call” is not a command or gospel, but an invitation to become a creator alongside her. She requires no formalities or rules, only recognition and gratitude. Instead of promising conditional salvation from above, she reminds us that we can find true liberty within. My exploration of this spirituality is both freeing and frightening. It lacks the familiar structure of religious authority and the comforts of prescribed belief. However, the faith that it offers is one rooted in agency, self-acceptance, and the given sacredness of all living things. As I recognize myself in everything around me, I begin to see my own body as part of a broader ecology. In this poem, the divine is not shaped by scripture but by motherhood, experience, and ecological unity. Both poems are accompanied by quotes which inspired their creation.