And to round out the theme of loss for this meeting (following on our first
meeting's theme of the abundance, plenitude, richness, miracle of life), here are
three short poems centuries & thousands of miles apart:

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

             Nature's first green is gold,
             Her hardest hue to hold.
             Her early leaf's a flower;
             But only so an hour.
             Then leaf subsides to leaf.
             So Eden sank to grief,
             So dawn goes down to day.
             Nothing gold can stay

             -Frost

Haiku by Issa

          So this is where                             Insects, why cry?
             I end up living-                             We all go
             Five feet of snow.                         that way.
             Where I come from                      Even flies bite.

             -both by Issa (1763-1827), translated by Robert Bly
  • Eighteenth-century Japanese poet, who used the simple pen name Issa and who is probably the best loved of the haiku masters.