This poem was inspired by Peyton Salmon, who when she was just 4 years old, answered a question in Family Church about Pentecost in a profound way. (Piers Northam.)

‘How do we know God?’ She asks.
‘We feel it inside us.’ says the child.
‘And what does it feel like?’
‘It feels like breath…’

It feels like breath:
the engendering, enlivening breath,
the rushing wind,
the gift of life…

This child,
just four years old,
speaks an ancient truth –
a truth not learnt
but lived.

She knows the One
who knit her together
in her mother’s womb:
recognises in a way
that can’t be taught.

Knows herself beloved.

                                                      

Piers Northam