When Great Trees Fall
On November 23, 2021, flights of angels guided Virginia Williams, the Mother of Ruth Harris to her eternal rest. Ruth is an Emeritus Board Member of Pearl Buck Center and has requested in lieu of flowers, donations be made to PBC. Ruth’s family has many connections to Pearl Buck Center as her sister Reva went to school here and Virginia was the personal secretary to our Founder Lisl Waechter from 1960-66.
When Great Trees Fall
Maya Angelou
When great trees fall,rocks on distant hills shudder,lions hunker down in tall grasses,and even elephants lumber after safety
When great trees fall in forests,small things recoil into silence,their senses eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,the air around us becomes light, rare, sterile.We breathe, briefly.Our eyes, briefly,see with a hurtful clarity.Our memory, suddenly sharpened,examines,gnaws on kind words unsaid,promised walks never taken.
Great souls die and our reality, bound to them, takes leave of us.Our souls,dependent upon their nurture,now shrink, wizened.Our minds, formed and informed by their radiance, fall away.We are not so much maddened as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of dark, cold caves.
And when great souls die,after a period peace blooms,slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration.Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us.They existed. They existed.We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.