Love-and-Death                                                            Page 16

Poetry can contribute to this healing: through creative imagination, through

symbols, images and rhythms that touch and open the “Feeling-side" of our

humanity and give it at least as much value as the mind:

The angry granite,

the hungry range,

must crumble away,

must melt and change,

forget the single

iron word

that no voice spoke

when no ear heard

and learn this thorny,

delicate, tender

speech of the flower

as last surrender.

Let rock be humble.

Let it decay.

Let time's old anger

become new earth,

to sign to the heart

the truth of death. ("Wildflower Plain" C.P. p. 155)

Existence strangely requires "the truth of death" as well as the truth of love.

Man is, woman is, star, tree, bird, root, rock, worm, flower - all is, and each is

made of love and death, fire and darkness.