(Featured image: Male quetzal bird in cloud forest, Costa Rica. Credit Francesco Veronesi, used under CC BY-SA 2.0)
Grief is so near the surface
That often I dare not speak
For fear
The words would come
In great shuddering sobs
And they would call me
Madwoman
And not listen
To what I have to say.
For I would shout it from the mountaintop
Behold: A Mystery.
Earth is so fair.
There is more beauty
Than your heart can ever hold
In a swan’s neck, a raccoon’s hand
In the song of a thrush
In sunlight through leaves in thick, green forests
In the wind on the water’s skin
In the agony of birth.
Cherish it
For you are part of it
This fragile blue-green planet
It flows through you
The living blood of Earth.
And for love of this Earth
I will hide
My passion of rage and tears.
I will woo you
With the selfish voice of reason
And you will also
Begin to know that Mystery.
__
Mary de La Valette
Spring 1989
