It's a privilege to fall flat / on your face like a mother / pulling away little / stone out of / her child's way / so he won't fall / and hurt himself if he were mine / I'd select / the largest stone / he could bark his shin on / without too much hurt / and I'd stop his crying / by saying see how strong you are / not even the stone / could break you / and I'd take his hurt / inside me / and give him / instead a bit of my strength I think that's how / Christ loved. It's a privilege to fall / flat
The text is from Peter Hooper's poem 'It's a privelege to fall flat on your face', from Journey towards an elegy and other poems (Nag's Head Press, Christchurch, 1969).