There is a place,
They said,
Where the stream
Gathers among the rocks
And stays to prepare
For further falls.
It is deep enough
To want to get into
And cold enough
To want to get out of
And good both ways.
It's far enough
From the camps
That you could go naked
Like the rocks.
And the sun would clothe you
And the trees would protect you
And they were right.
We would venture there
For that brief moment of water
With a whole day
Leading to and from it...
The water making music on the rocks
The bees singing in the honeysuckle
The sun playing rhythms in the leaves
The air gently humming
While we made music of our own,
The trees looking down
And keeping the other world away.
But idylls are always
Part illusion.
The thing remembered
Is never as rich
As the memory of it.
(Homilies can help us cope
With the unacceptable.)
Death is unacceptable.
So when we hear of
Crazed armies of apocalypse
Assaulting our eden
And pillaging its quiet miracles
Defenseless
Save for the remains
Of the last stalwart trees
Who stood over us
And now stand alone
Dying in the now unceasing sun
Brother of the fire
And father of the wind it rode,
We will go on but we won't go back.
We cannot stand funerals.
Especially of loved ones.
