AMXROADS-L Archives

From: "Carolyn McDaniel" <>
Subject: [AMXROADS] AMXROADS Community
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 17:16:09 -0700

Dear Cousins,

Thank you, Beej, Sandra and Jaimie, for the generosity of
spirit in your messages How we all need this in these days of
far-flung families and shattered communities. I am so happy that the
three of you have joined our AMXROADS family. My first (local)
website was called Homecoming, and it is very much a part of what
AMXROADS is about. We may not know one another in the face to face
way, but it is a wonderful thing to nevertheless be able to reach out
to one another in heartfelt kinship. As we suffer our personal
battles and losses, it is a comfort to know that we are not alone,
and that others care. Robert Frost wrote so many beautiful poems, but
this one is my favorite -- and has brought me much comfort in times of
feeling great loss and loneliness.

Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn

The Tuft of Flowers

I WENT to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

"As all must be," I said within my heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim over night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly-weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

"Men work together," I told him from the heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."


Carolyn McDaniel
=========================================
--- Visit American Crossroads ---
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads

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• [AMXROADS] AMXROADS Community by "Carolyn McDaniel" <>