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.
-When Great Trees Fall by Maya Angelou from The Complete Poetry
In the early days of shelter in place my parents did not follow guidelines. It was upsetting and as I checked in with friends, I realized I was not alone in my fear-born frustration. I love my parents and I am not ready to know a life that does not have them in it. While I decry some of the choices and mistakes of my elders when it comes to their worship of capitalism and their destruction of the environment, I covet their wisdom.
We exist because of the greatness, care and mistakes of earlier generations. Angelou reminds us that we can be and be better because our ancestors existed. We can respect their dreams while choosing to dream different, bolder dreams. We can name their sins and examine the ways we learned to sin from them. Grief is not only for the dying, it is also for the living. It is for grieving that we cannot live as our beloved ancestors once lived, we cannot participate in this world and creation the way that they did. Grief is for the living and it is like all things an invitation. To reflect, to repent, to dream and to listen to what God might be up to in this long string of people that stretched before us and will stretch after us.
Be Kind,
Cara
To Find a Steady Center is a daily poem and meditation to offer a short, good word to those who are anxious, fearful or lonely and who might need a gentle word of hope, encouragement or perspective during social distancing.
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