Wednesday Poetry Corner

A Saxon Epitaph

The earth builds on the earth

Castles and towers; 

The earth saith of the earth: 

All shall be ours.

Yea, though they plan and reap

The rye and the corn,

Lo, they were bond to Sleep

Ere they were born.

Yea, though the blind earth sows

For the fruit and the sheaf,

They shall harvest the leaf of the rose

And the dust of the leaf.

Pride of the sword and power

Are theirs at their need

Who shall rule but the root of the flower

The fall of the seed.

They who follow the flesh

In splendour and tears,

They shall rest and clothe them afresh

In the fulness of years.

From the dream of the dust they came

As the dawn set free.

They shall pass as the flower of the flame

Or the foam of the sea.

The earth builds on the earth

Castles and towers.

The earth saith of the earth:

All shall be ours.

Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthal

Well, today was going to be a beach day for me, but it's only 50 degrees out there and always colder by the ocean. I really would prefer some warmer temps so to get some color on my arms.  Friday looks like a better day.  I really don't like the sun and never overdo.  My skin is pale and turns like a lobster.  But, I do like to rid myself of some of that 'winter paleness', go back to work looking like, well, looking like I was 'on' vacation.

My co-worker emailed me that my little fish finally gave up his fight.  Yes, he was still alive until Monday.  He had his bad days and his good days, but by the end of last week, I knew when I came back from vacation he wouldn't be there.  So, Friday I said my good-byes.  I know this is all for the best, that he was suffering and only a shell of what he had been, but one always has that hope, and several so-called 'fish experts' had told us he was going to pull through.  

On another sad note, since the eaglets hatched, I've been following them more than the hummingbird babes.  Actually, thus far this year I've already seen two fledges from Phoebe's babes, so rather than watch day after day, I've checked in on them off and on. What I found  was devastating. It was all gone. On the 15th, a large bird, either a crow or a hawk, had attacked the nest and carried it and the babies away.   I started to watch the video of it, but once I saw those two little cuties lying peacefully in their nest, eyes open and looking around, I just couldn't do it.  I had to turn it off.  But, devastating as it was, it was, in fact, a necessary part of life.  

Mother Nature is beautiful, amazing and sometimes cruel. She demands life in order to give life. She doesn't always 'fair' to the human eye, but just as the hummingbird babes have to eat, so do the crow/hawk's babes. She who creates, destroys, and re-creates again.  The way nature works, Phoebe will go on and make more beautiful babies for us to enjoy.

All things in nature work silently. They come into being and possess nothing.

They fulfill their function and make no claim. All things alike do their work,

and then we see them subside. When they have reached their bloom,

each returns to its origin. . . . This reversion is an eternal law.

To know that law is wisdom.

Lao-Tzu