“…the seed falters in the marsh…”

Life can sneak up on you and shake you up

with a sudden tragedy.

(impossible to see it coming)

Even though the tragedy isn't mine,

it's touched me,

made me pause,

and shake.

(Does anyone read poetry anymore?)

A line from a much loved poem by Howard Moss,

…the seed falters in the marsh…

perfectly describes the suspension of time,

when something extraordinary has happened to someone we love.

All will be well,

everything for a reason,

everything in its season.

But dang…

Shaky photo of El Galleon, elegantly lighted in St. Augustine Harbor.

A larger shard of the poem, Water Island, by Howard Moss…

Written to the memory of a friend,

drowned off Water Island, April, 1960

Maybe you heard, the last you'll ever hear,

The cry of the savage and endemic gull

Which shakes the blood and always brings to mind

The thought that death, the scavenger, is blind,

Blunders and is stupid, and the end

Comes with ironies so fine the seed

Falters in the marsh and the heron stops

Hunting in the weeds below your landing stairs,

Standing in a stillness that now is yours.

(It wasn't a death, but a house fire, a terrible house fire.)