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There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
-Sara Teasdale
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I read it in first grade and it accelerated the development of a profound sense of consciousness and independent thinking and fortified my existing love for animals/nature/the environment. I was already an overly existential child and it helped me learn to focus on beauty and joy in the face of death and suffering!
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The leaves were falling from the great oak at the meadow's edge. They were falling from all the trees.
One branch of the oak reached high above the others and stretched far out over the meadow. Two leaves clung to its very tip.
"It isn't the way it used to be," said one leaf to the other.
"No," the other leaf answered. "So many of us have fallen off tonight we're almost the only ones left on our branch."
"You never know who's going to go next," said the first leaf. "Even when it was warm and the sun shone, a storm or a cloudburst would come sometimes, and many leaves were torn off, though they were still young. You never know who's going to go next."
"The sun seldom shines now," sighed the second leaf, "and when it does it gives no warmth. We must have warmth again."
"Can it be true," said the first leaf, "can it really be true, that others come to take our places when we're gone and after them still others, and more and more?"
"It is really true," whispered the second leaf. "We can't even begin to imagine it, it's beyond our powers."
"It makes me very sad," added the first leaf.
They were silent a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to herself, "Why must we fall? ..."
The second leaf asked, "What happens to us when we have fallen?"
"We sink down. ..."
"What is under us?"
The first leaf answered, "I don't know, some say one thing, some another, but nobody knows."
The second leaf asked, "Do we feel anything, do we know anything about ourselves when we're down there?"
The first leaf answered, "Who knows? Not one of all those down there has ever come back to tell us about it."
They were silent again. Then the first leaf said tenderly to the other, "Don't worry so much about it, you're trembling."
"That's nothing," the second leaf answered, "I tremble at the least thing now. I don't feel so sure of my hold as I used to."
"Let's not talk any more about such things," said the first leaf.
The other replied, "No, we'll let be. But—what else shall we talk about?" She was silent, but went on after a little while. "Which of us will go first?"
"There's still plenty of time to worry about that," the other leaf assured her. "Let's remember how beautiful it was, how wonderful, when the sun came out and shone so warmly that we thought we'd burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew, and the mild and splendid things..."
"Now the nights are dreadful," the second leaf complained, "and there is no end to them."
"We shouldn't complain," said the first leaf gently. "We've outlived many, many others."
"Have I changed much?" asked the second leaf shyly but determinedly.
"Not in the least," the first leaf assured her. "You only think so because I've got to be so yellow and ugly. But it's different in your case."
"You're fooling me," the second leaf said.
"No, really," the first leaf exclaimed eagerly, "believe me, you're as lovely as the day you were born. Here and there may be a little yellow spot but it's hardly noticeable and only makes you handsomer, believe me."
"Thanks," whispered the second leaf, quite touched. "I don't believe you, not altogether, but I thank you because you're so kind, you've always been so kind to me. I'm just beginning to understand how kind you are."
"Hush," said the other leaf, and kept silent herself for she was too troubled to talk any more.
Then they were both silent. Hours passed.
A moist wind blew, cold and hostile, through the treetops.
"Ah, now," said the second leaf, "I..." Then her voice broke off. She was torn from her place and spun down.
Winter had come.
Sep 8, 2024
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
5h ago
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Are you still listening for it?
The incessant splashing against the glass on a dark afternoon
Whilst inside you bake bread and mend holes in old loved clothes,
Warm cat on your lap,
Later you meet your warm lover in your bed.
Do you still listen for the beginnings of the shower before you know for sure it's even in the air?
You check your weather app eight times a day
And never wear open toed shoes if there's ever a cloud above you.
Are you still packing an umbrella into your little bags?
You know it never rains when you have it. Why does it never rain when you have it?
You start to believe that maybe you are magic and so you always carry an umbrella and now it is shining.
But why are you still waiting for it to pour?
To make up for the burden of protection?
To make the effort all mean something?
Can you still smell the storm before it arrives?
Does your blood still run in tune with the currents of the air? Do the hairs on your arms stand up when it is coming?
Are you bracing yourself or do you still love it?
The excitement of the electricity and wetness and risk all around you with each loud flash.
Don't leave the house lest it strike you down
Because if it were to happen to anyone, it would be you.
Does your heart still sink when you open the curtains and see the gloom?
Even though the sun was shining on your worst days because the sun always shines on your worst days and pathetic fallacy isn't real.
You're not living on a flood plane.
All the trees are waving,
In that, all the trees sound like waves in the wind.
The rhythm of this water is in the leaves all shuddering their bodies against one another
And it is not raining.
There are so many weathers and it is not raining
Though it will come again and the shuddering trees will be thankful for it.
It will spill down their green palms and spiny fingers,
Caress their planted bodies on its way to the earth
And they will be filled with all of its life.
You remark that you are waterproof, fireproof, bombproofed like a spooky horse
You drink three litres of water a day lest your body shuts down
and you don't know how it feels to have your feet in the grass whilst the rain falls on your skin.
It flows around your house through the pipes and the gutters and you sit inside and listen with some degree of anticipation
Or confirmation or validation or something something that you knew this would happen,
That you knew it was to be expected to come again
But the house you have built channels the water away from you
And the bricks are still standing
And you're inside where you have all of your things
And all of your loves
And the anticipation of the downpour never made it stop.
Sep 21, 2024
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Currently, links are just a little icon up in the top. Maybe if they were more visible at the top or bottom they’d be more effective. Also, adding a small amount of preview for the link so that users know what they’re pressing. Something like the text used for re-recs.
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