La Rama

"La Rama" 2018

Copyright Julie Nygaard

Digital Photography Manipulation - Canon T5

"When Great Trees Fall" 

"When great trees fall, 

rocks on the distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down

in tall grasses, 

and even elephants

lumber after safety.

When great trees fall

in forests, 

small things recoil into silence, 

their senses 

eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die, 

the air around us becomes

light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.

Our eyes, briefly, 

see with

a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened, 

examines, 

gnaws on kind words unsaid, 

promised walks never taken. 

Great souls die and 

our reality, bound to 

them, takes leave of us.

Our souls, 

dependent upon their nurture, 

now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, 

fall away.

We are not so much maddened 

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance

of dark, cold caves. 

And when great souls die, 

after a period peace blooms, 

slowly and always

irregularly. Spaces fill

with a kind of 

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never 

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed. They existed. 

We can be. For they existed."

- Maya Angelou