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

[isobeljimbish at optusnet.com.au]

Thank you Nancy 
For both pieces. 
With love,
Isobel Bishop 

Sent from my iPhone

> On 13 Jan 2020, at 6:25 pm, PAUL SCHRIJNEN via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
> 
> 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
>> Nancy50273 at centurylink.net
>> 515 505 0456
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> 
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