When Great Trees Fall

[Anna Billings]

To Fife
that sleek and beautiful stallion
majestic Morgan with a smooth chestnut coat
who graced us with his quiet nobility
for more than thirty years,
whose presence took root
in the deep earth of our everyday lives.

We miss you.
We miss your soulful eyes,
your elegant, feisty prances
your slow glides
and silent surveys of the pasture
your playful whinnies
your intelligent kindness
your patience
your beauty
We miss you.

Here is a poem that says it best —

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.

Title of poem: Ailey, Baldwin, Floyd, Killens, and Mayfield
Authored by Maya Angelou
From: I Shall Not Be Moved

[Connie Weber]

Anna,
Thank you. A perfect memorial for my equine-friend of 30 years. A beautiful poem. Indeed, when he fell, it was a like a giant tree falling.
Majesty, quietude.
The other horse, Somerset, still visits his grave.