On this day...

Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves the insects are eating each other.
--Francis Bacon

Today, the phlox came up throughout central Pennsylvania, as they mark Memorial Day every year. Today, Memorial Day in the United States, was an especially beautiful day. Not especially sunny, but bright and full of color and shadow. A woodpecker tapped on a limb in my yard. I watched through my field glasses. Birds sung as though tuning their instruments, each type in its own spring leitmotif. A breeze threw all around the yellow pollen from the wide oak trees that surround my house.

I rode my bicycle this morning. I had a beautiful ride alongside the woods and, then, through neighborhoods in which lawnmowers droned their spring bagpipes to wake lazy neighbors. I was rewarded at the end of the bike path with a rest and absolute pure fuel for my soul. The remainder of the day was quiet and filled with reflection.

How, on such a day, could memories arise so cruel that many cannot feel the spring warmth, cannot see the new, seasonal light, cannot soak in the color of the wind? Cruel memories of loss. Cruel memories of strife. Cruel memories of war.

Something to be remembered from a song in popular during the Second World War:

Sweetheart, the night is growing old.
Sweetheart, my love is still untold.
A kiss that is never tasted,
forever and ever is wasted.

So, please, no kisses withheld, no time ever lost, no love untold. Nevermore.