When I am dead, and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain drenched hair,
Tho you should lean above me broken hearted,
I shall not care.
For I shall have peace.
As leafey trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough.
And I shall be more silent and cold hearted
Than you are now.
(Suicide note to her lover who left her.)
~~ Sara Teasdale, poet, d. 1933

A rainy day and it feels right to cry,
just as I know this gray helps green to grow;
just as these drops blur the panes melt the snow;
time to weep we thrive on death and ask why.
If only tears could drain the sorrows dry.
Comes April, cruelest month, we surely know,
for all She sows, our species could bestow
the end of most in the blink of an eye.
Wounded world, with so much to care about,
and we the beasts with the footprints too big--
wars of orphans and fill of elephant--
The kinds of killings bring my savage out!
God's creatures over mothers' poacher-pig!
The burden need be shared and so I rant.

© Helga Ross

*National Geographic: Ivory Wars—March 2007