Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the mornings hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.
Author unknown
Commonly attributed to several authors
I.
For we are the children of the Atomic Age
Before our birth our genes were coded and spliced
Yet the earth, the earth, is beautiful
For fallout the wind brings that we cannot see
For nuclear power plants and missiles mapping our trails
Yet the earth is so beautiful
For the deception of powerful men we pay and pay
For their so strange illusion of boundless power
Yet the earth, the earth is so beautiful
for bald eagles and other endangered species
for the tragic magnificence of all the doomed
Yet the earth is beautiful everywhere
For people born today who will not live too long
For the medical profession which has no enduring cure
Yet the earth is beautiful still beautiful
For how we turn to flora and fauna for healing and love
for how those men's vision wins out over the earth
Yet the earth is still beautiful
How we dream again of her green vegetative hair
How they dream of an abstract ghostly heaven
Yet the earth, the earth, is beautiful
For our irradiated food and pesticide-drenched crops
For our vast indulgences that led to these disasters
Yet the earth is still beautiful
For foolish men's dreams of escaping to the stars
For their deadly machinery and all its effects
Yet the earth, the earth, is beautiful everywhere
for how the polar caps are really melting
for our prophecies of falling into the sea
Yet the earth, the earth and sea, are beautiful
For the thousands of species that have already died
For us who would like to survive---
For the earth / sea / sky are beautiful, so beautiful
II.
For how nature's subtle patterns resemble one another
How fireflies mirror the distant stars
And Hindu palaces look like children's sandcastles
And the sea contains butterfly patterned fish
For how black bats spread darkness with their caped wings
And light and shadow coruscate in a dance
For how shadows sew the living and dead together
And spirals connect us--fetuses, snails, corpses--
in the world's coiled womb
For how the willow's slender leaves drop like tears
And foxgloves, little delicate bells of dawn,
sway to the gong of the wind
For how mountains are molded like breasts
And cowparsnip umbels delicate as grandma's white lace
And coleuses might have been daubed by artists' brushes
For how bird of paradise have beaks sharp as feathered birds'
And hummingbirds, fishes, frogs and stars share in the
world's iridescent luminescence
And for how the trees' leaves are their mantle of hair
That they shed and grow, grow and shed and shed and grow again
And for how cat, zebra, raccoon and tiger lily
Are marked by the same winddriven eternal fingers
For how our eyes sparkle like jewels, illuminating darkness--
Brown for the earth, blue for the sky, green for the sea
And for how our bodies contain arteries of water
Like the earth its net of oceans, lakes and rivers--
Its profusion of life sustaining blood
For how the sun rises each morning on its own legs
And disappears each night into a mesh of crimson darkness
And for how the moon trails the sea after it
Like a bride a billowing wedding train
For how fresh snow is like froth of foam capped waves
And for the rainbow painting arches in the sky
And for how we are here today in the flesh
And for how soon there may be few left like us
For we--we are the children--of the Atomic Age
For all this and for the earth, the earth,
Which is beautiful, still beautiful everywhere we go
Copyright (c) Erika Horn 2003. All rights reserved.
“The closest to being in control we will ever be is in that moment that we realize we're not.”
Brian Kessler
We are all adrift
on a sea of confusion.
Unknowing of which way to go.
Unsure of the difference
in truth and illusion.
Or when to go fast
or move slow!
Unsure who to trust,
with things we are feeling.
Not knowing how much
we should share!
Afraid to relinquish
the whole of our heart!
Yet, longing to have
someone care!
We must stay afloat
on this sea of confusion,
though some days
we flounder, at best!
Our spirit is sodden.
Our heart feels deflated.
Our soul is not
up to the quest
June Kellum
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling
