Dante, looking out over Hell after newly arriving, said that he did not think death had “undone” so many. He was, of course, referring to people, but we know that everything dies eventually, too soon or too late, flora, fauna, persons, ourselves. And our (Mary and my) death toll is rising. First, recently, we lost our black cat Pinkie, due to some kind of destructive stomach growth; she was old, but since she arrived here long ago from only God knows where, we don’t know how old. Next, there was our beagle, Dexter, also very old, in the teens certainly, again a victim to old age and sickness. Now, our Jack Russell terrier has a tumor on her liver and is being treated with chemo; our old and grey dachshund, Simon, can’t use his hind legs or control his bladder; I estimate that in human years he is about three years younger than I am (80 and thus 77). At the moment, he is as usual sitting beside me and barking incessantly because he can smell food being prepared in the kitchen, and he can’t get there to see and taste. If he doesn’t shut up soon he may not make it through the day, poor little guy. The problem with all the dogs, well 3 out of 4, is that they are all as old as we are. That leaves Schuster who is 7, but has his own problems, and Dusty, the new, more or less, outdoor and sunroom cat, who, like Pinkie, also just arrived one day.

Everything dies, the turtles, the fish, the possums, the raccoons, the cats, the dogs, the people who care for them, especially the people who care for them, the people we love. Beauty disappears, skin wrinkles, joints crack and shoot pains up and down; backs, ah, backs just get worse from day to day as gravity and age take their toll.

I was reminded, with the images of the azaleas and redbud (spring images) that one of the terrible and terrifying storms that blew through Berea in the early summer, brought down an enormous limb from one of our old pine trees and did some awful destruction on that redbud, on one half of the wonderful doors that opened into the garden (since rebuilt), as well as other smaller flora in that vicinity, a smaller, slow-growing Japanese maple, etc. Storm damage takes its toll too, though people, animals, and house escaped untouched.

All the day lilies are gone this summer too, already, so let some other images be a tribute to lost beauty (and delight), that reality that stands at the heart of creation, and human life, and frequently reminds me of the goodness inherent in and behind the universe, goodness from which we all fall short, and frequently miss in our brief lives. Goodness….a worthy goal to strive for in our very, very short lives, before they flicker and burn out like the flame from a long vanished candle. Visit the poets, like Shakespeare, for example, for the language that captures our predicament, like Hopkins, like Donne, like Dante (wonderful Dante), like Eliot, like the romantics, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelly, Byron, etc., etc., etc.

For a long time now, there has been a gravestone in the Berea cemetery with our name on it: “Startzman,” for our first grandchild, a lovely little girl, Isabelle Rebekah, who did not survive her first full year, and whose loss broke all our hearts:

From The Phone Poem Book: Simple Gifts:

Winter’s Child

22 January 1998—17 December 1998

In Memoriam: Isabelle Rebekah, granddaughter

Winter’s child is flesh and frail

Infant beauty soon to fail:

Seed to shoot to graceful flower,

Mysterious presence, awful power.

Winter’s child is for a time:

Breath of dawn, incarnate rime;

Delicate crystal waits the sun—

Who draws her forth, His littlest one.