When God Weeps

1997

80" x 99"

Hiroshima Series

My 88-year old friend, Mildred Raynolds Trivers' wrote the poem that inspired this quilt. All of this cloth was black when I began.  I discharged color from the black cloth using various methods of resist and bleaching.  Cutting and sewing were often very painful and upsetting.  I found that I could not work on it for more than two hours at a time.  Unusual angles were included to imply chaos and destruction. I kept seeing images of people in the details especially when I was doing the quilting stitches by hand.  The metal figures kneeling in prayer are "milagros" from Latin America. 

God of History

God of Hiroshima and of Holocaust

God of History and of Oklahoma City

God of might, God of massacre

Terrible pitiless God

Whom we address as God of Mercy

Whom we preach as God of Love

Whom we serve as God of Hate

On my knees! On my knees!

God of Job and of Golgotha!

Why hast Thou forsaken us?

Why hast Thou led us and left us

Under tons of bodies, under tons of bricks?

To what end?  For what purpose

Do we dwell in the valleys of Horror?

On my knees!  On my knees!

                                    Mildred Raynolds Trivers

                                    Muncie, Indiana USA

Art Quilts by Barbara Moll