Maya Angelou - When Great Trees Fall

When Great Trees Fall - 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.





*In memory of my good friend Larry St Onge (1964 - 2021)*