Still Celebrating You | Always Remember

~

I am not gone

I remain here beside you
Just in a different form
Look for me in your heart
And there you will find me
in our love which forever lives on

In those moments when you feel alone
Look for me in your thoughts
And there you will find me
in sweet memories that burn strong

Every time a tear
Forms in your beautiful eyes
Look up to the heavens
And there you will see me
Smiling down from God's glorious skies

~

When Great Trees Fall

by Maya Angelou

When great trees fall
rocks on 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. Be and be better. For they existed.