'WHEN GREAT TREES FALL"

 ‘WHEN GREAT TREES FALL”

We have had a tough month with the passing of many stalwarts in our personal and national lives – Christine Callier for Caroline and me, as well as Dolly Parton, Wendell Berry, Gloria Steinem, and Robin Morgan.  Such powerful witnesses, and whenever this happens, I like to share the poem by my fellow Arkansan Maya Angelou.  It is called “When Great Trees Fall,” and here it is:

"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 repair.

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.