I'd like to share a poem from a favorite Newfoundland poet, Al Pittman, who died in August, 2001.
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| Mayfly |
Dance of the Mayflies
We who have known
and yet long for lasting love
cannot ascend to that space
wherein the mayflies
dance their dance and die.
We may lament the brevity
of their agile joy, their consummation
in the shallow altitudes of the air.
We may envy them the choreography
of their airborne ballet, their winged
copulation in the summer sun.
But they aren't odes or rhymes
on wings. They aren't symbols
of beauty or emblems of ecstasy.
They are insects who are born
to dance one dance and die.
Because our destinies
are less defined than theirs
we need to know there'll always be
a morning after and always
another night to stumble, lame
and wingless into darkness.
Unlike the mayflies (but maybe not)
we need to live on, living in love
beyond the limits of our own
mortality. We have to keep on dying
day after day, night after night,
dying again and again, over
and over, for the next, only,
and always one more dance.
Al Pittman
