Loss

Earthquake and tsunamis in Asia the day after Christmas. 8.9 on the Richter scale. Thousands - more than 20,000 - dead. I can't seem to put in words the horror of it all. Someone else's words will have to suffice.

I buried him, wrapped in a lettuce leaf,
The vivid eye sunk inward, a dull stone.
So this was it, the universal grief:
Each bears his own end knit up in the bone.
Where are the dead? we ask, as we hurtle
Toward the dark, part of this strange creation,
One with each limpet, leaf, and smallest turtle -
Cry out for life, cry out in desperation!

~ from "Death and the Turtle," by May Sarton

Posted by Monoceros at December 27, 2004 12:03 PM