POETRY: Of Gods and Men

(Featured image: mantis on the Great Wall of China, credit Kim Bartlett)

The older I am
The less interested I am
In the petty affairs of men
And the more
I love Earth
And all her other creatures
And systems and seasons.

There is more beauty
In the Dawn and the Dusk
Than in all the works of man.
There is more wonder and awe
In the bee in the flower
In the budding of the tamaracks
In the raven’s harsh greeting,
In the splendour of the night sky
The desolation of the wilderness,
Than in all
Man and his machines have created.

If we have to have gods,
If that is all that will move us,
They are there,
In Nature,
Implacable,
Unknowable,
Vulnerable.

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Mary de La Valette
September 2015