Recent ones.

twisted lily, summer 2008

Two poems from a college classmate.

Recent ones
by Esther Shaver


A tree that had lost a very small branch
cried to the earth that life was unfair.
The earth gave comfort and, in time,
the branch scarred over and the tree healed.
The earth smiled to herself
at the small wisdom of the tree
and grasped her great clefts and rifts
and tried to close them.
And peace there was for a while.
But then the tree was made into a gun.
And greater rifts were cut to find
the heart of the earth.
And the earth wept for the days
when she had had time to close rifts great
and clefts small;
when peace, though broken by war, could be restored again.
And then, a tree that had lost a very small branch
cried to the earth that life was pain...



Two sides of this coin,
leading to 'myself' and 'the wide world'
Taken each by themselves
I find flat and unknown respectively
But taken together,
I am filled with the world
And the world has meaning to one small person.
Ambiguity and mystery
fail time and again
to discover this knowing, paradox eternal.
I cannot contain the world,
and the world cannot be valid
except there be those like me to accept its being.
It's a lonely fate, being human:
Called to live
until all else fails.
And driven to communicate
until veritable intercourse is needed.
Curses be for the willfully lonely.