Let the stones cry out, O Lord, for we are stunned to silence.
Let the cobbles of uneven paving end their reticence,
Break their stillness (does the shout of rock sound like a cracking?),
Raise their voices. Let the stones cry: “Save us! Lord, Hosannah!
Blessed are You who come to bring salvation of our God!”
Crackling praise. If loud enough, perhaps it might drown out
The heaving of our weeping.

We weep for children poisoned by the falling bombs in Syria.
We weep for warriors slain when missiles came to them with death.
We pray for people walking, standing, falling as the truck rolled on.
We pray for people worshiping, and waving palms, recalling You
And how devotion shattered in concussed reverberation.
Let the stones cry out, because your people’s voices
Have been called to weeping.

“Hosannah!” “Save us!” Cry it, stones, as Jesus makes his storied climb
Beneath the venerated gates, with steady step of his swift-borrowed steed,
The one he chose to honor Zechariah, “Humble, riding on a donkey,”
Yet still a declaration of his majesty. Cry it, stones, though your voice be muffled
By the palm leaves strewn upon your surfaces, by the cloth
That’s laid across your seams. Cry it, stones: “Hosannah! Save us!”
Because our voices have been lost to weeping.

Upon your humble mount, O Jesus, what comes to your ears?
The ears of One divine and human? Do you hear our sobs
Across the centuries, though muddled in the mix of cries,
“Hosannah! Save us! Bless us with salvation from our God!”
Their cry, the cry of stones, the cry of desperate humanity,
Is ours. Save us, Lord, from all the evil we would do:
Because our voices have been lost to weeping.