[Oe List ...] [Dialogue] Poetry about death - and an amusing anecdote

[PAUL SCHRIJNEN]

magnificent… both joke and poem…

thank you.

Paul



> On 12 Jan 2020, at 23:18, Nancy Trask via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
> 
> First the amusing anecdote... from Karamo Brown of Queer Eye fame:
> 
> Karamo:  You need not worry about death, you should worry about what state you’re in.
> Jonathan Van Ness (in a horrified whisper):  New Jersey!
> 
> And the poetry:
> When Great Trees Fall
> 
> 
> by Maya Angelou
> When great trees fall, rocks on distant hills shudder,
> lions hunker down
> in tall grasses,
> and even elephants
> lumber after safety.
> 
> 
> 
> When great trees fall
> in forests,
> 
> small things recoil into silence,
> 
> their senses
> eroded beyond fear.
> 
> 
> 
> When great souls die,
> 
> the air around us becomes
> 
> light, rare, sterile.
> 
> We breathe, briefly.
> Our eyes, briefly,
> 
> see with
> 
> a hurtful clarity.
> 
> Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
> 
> examines,
> 
> gnaws on kind words
> 
> unsaid,
> 
> promised walks
> 
> never taken.
> 
> 
> Great souls die and
> 
> our reality, bound to
> 
> them, takes leave of us.
> 
> Our souls,
> 
> dependent upon their
> 
> nurture,
> 
> now shrink, wizened.
> 
> Our minds, formed
> 
> and informed by their
> 
> radiance,
> fall away.
> 
> We are not so much maddened
> 
> as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
> of
> dark, cold
> 
> caves.
> 
> 
> 
> And when great souls die,
> 
> after a period peace blooms,
> 
> slowly and always
> 
> irregularly. Spaces fill
> 
> with a kind of
> 
> soothing electric vibration.
> 
> Our senses, restored, never
> 
> to be the same, whisper to us.
> 
> ”They existed. They existed.
> 
> We can be. Be and be
> 
> better. For they existed.”
> 
> ― Maya Angelou
> 
> Grace and peace,
> 
> Nancy Trask
> NLT462 at gmail.com <mailto:NLT462 at gmail.com>
> Nancy50273 at centurylink.net <mailto:Nancy50273 at centurylink.net>
> 515 505 0456
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