The Rise and Fall of Life

From a tremulous hand of in-consequence,
a gesture of selflessness,
and as a butterfly takes flight aflutter,
the world changes by degree, its color,
as on the other side of the planet
a soul passes,
memories of life’s glory run free,
as their fading marks a birth
two thousand leagues across the sea,
and in a jungle of the tropics
a plant so rare and unique is found,
to save maybe a million lives,
for its gift of nature, profound.
A man in Manhattan steps aside,
to allow a pregnant girl to pass,
and as she does falls down through a metal grate
crumbling like glass,
and two souls lose their lives that day,
as one man bears witness, aghast;
and downtown a pigeon touches two wires
to falls dead upon the ground,
as a child watches with fear in his eyes,
the fragility of life resounds,
and as a burial takes place in Greenland,
a new birth in Fiji,
as the world just keep on turning,
and life ebbs and flows by decree.
The colour of the gloaming sky,
is the colour of desert sands,
and the diaphanous wings of a dragonfly,
my bedroom window, my vista grand,
and the passing of a soul so sweet,
as the birthing of one to greet
a new world with a boisterous cry,
denying nothing, acceptance breath inspired,
and a parrot brimming with colours vast,
cannot be painted in truth,
as no paint can fathom life’s being,
or its changing, its age or youth.
As each spider that works all night
to bring about a web, a dream,
a spire of human dignity, falls to longevity,
things bursting at the seams,
and the wind it creates in dust and bluster,
creates a storm a thousand miles away,
and villagers on a Pacific paradise,
are stricken by its wake,
and as bees slowly disappear,
and imbalance marks our days,
who knows the falling one by one,
of all the world we’ve come to know,
seemingly random, to and fro,
the rise and fall of life.
Tony DeLorger © 2018
- Brutal Night - March 30, 2021
- Like a Breeze Recalls - March 27, 2021
- Torrents - September 5, 2020







Like a never-ending book with no last page, life continues on whether here or in the beyond. It is all connected somehow. It is beautiful and ugly, joyful and sad, easy and hard, etc., all in balance when considering the whole. Profound thoughts, skillful and well penned work, Tony.
Much appreciated Phyllis, yes all that and more. Living it is the hard part. lol Cheers!