Verses on Living with Nature (Part 1)

How wonderful is creation when we realize in a minuscule the universality of the simple linked to the complex, where every living thing is part of life’s interrelating; like a chain, its strength shared by each link cooperating.

Dr Abe V. Rotor

Waterhole, Mural detail AVRotor 2009

               

1. I walked the bridge to its far end and beyond,
And down the river to the sea I cast my pole.
It was a fight I fought, it was no longer game,
And it was neither fish nor dream I caught.

2. Tranquility reigns on her face, rage in her breast,
If beauty exudes best from a spring of force,
I do not wonder at the shyness of a crest,
And the power of a single rose.

3. I touched the towering figure and I was touched,
Transported to Gulliver’s land for a moment;
To meet the maker, a simple man from the hills,
Unschooled, yet his burin sings the glory of Ancient Greece.

4. Pygmies make giants, 
for the little man dreams of what he misses.
Humble is he, painstakingly working on his stead,
Until a Genie rises from his hands, mirror of a great soul.
Lo, a pupil I am, doubting my skill, my goal.

5. Many years ago you had another name -
Gleaners, and work was also game.
Now it’s all work and the art of the vulture,
And those with fangs and ugly mane.
But if none is waste and waste is useful -
Would your breed thrive just the same?

6. For just once the world is mine
With rowdy friends and I,
Happily with a jug of wine,
Words come easy, ‘Aye, Aye!’ ”

7. Through time, humanity has changed through use
Of its environment for man’s needs through abuse,
From adaptation to modernization,
All in the name of civilization.

8. Pleasance to you youth, bright as the sun;
The world be at war or be at peace.
Ask not where have all the flowers gone;
Seasons come, and seasons go at ease.~