“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, . . . as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Jon Donne’s words live on well past when the bell tolled for him in 1631.
It was a year to forget for most people. A funeral bell tolling for 2021 could not come fast enough. COVID-19 was part of that, a ghost of 2021 that yet haunts 2022. It caused far too many humans to hear their bell tolling. The year’s strife, one against another, on such a wide variety of topics, even within family units. Now that’s the type of bell ringing that can crack the bell, as happened with the Liberty Bell.
That ugly tolling sound from a cracked bell reminds family, neighborhood, and friends that the bell yet tolls for thee, and social aspects that were cracked in 2021.
Angelkeep ponders on “How do you fix a society so eager to assault another?” Don’t ask a Viking. Don’t rely on ancient Egyptian or Roman experience. Will 2022 become a continuing Mount Vesuvius upon Pompeii? Turmoil unfettered unto death. Did anyone make a New Year’s resolution of: “Be much nicer to my fellow man in thought, word, and deed?”
Angelkeep’s pondering recalled a metaphor event of nature. Actually the location was the same for several. The casualties were many in 2021. The reasoning never fully understood. The resolution commodiously nonexistent.
In a secluded spot on the shore of the back side of Angelpond, an aged and invasive honeysuckle bush towers to the point of cascading limbs out and over a portion of the water. It has killed off all other plant life under its land-shading branches and by sapping all the earthly nutrients greedily for itself. Dead leaves fall, rot, and become humus adding more life to the soil. The honeysuckle takes it all, metaphorically speaking: “It’s all about me.”
In 2021’s spring a mallard laid one egg among a cluster of dead twigs and leaves. For reasons unknown, the solitary unit never received a companion destined for invigorating new life. The egg received no care. In late fall a repeated egg search found nothing. The bell tolled for the lonely egg. Metaphorically it was crushed, attacked, stolen, toppled, or carried away by a scavenger, like so many news media reports headlined in 2021.
In the same location, under the honeysuckle bent on nothing but self-preservation, a natural rise in the water of Angelpond caused a cluster of duck weed to be lifted out of the water onto the shore. Duckweed is a rootless plant that survives only on a pond’s surface. It’s certain of death on land. Among those hundreds of tiny pencil-tip-size duckweed plants had also been lifted out a walnut. Its drop into the pond from the shore’s walnut tree, caused it to travel a bit on the water before being lifted out onto land. A Noah’s ark story with a sad end.
The new location beneath the honeysuckle contained absolutely no chance of having sunlight or soil nutrients to begin a new walnut generation. Beside the dying walnut, also lifted out of the flood water to a sure demise, laid a keeper-size bluegill. The duckweed, walnut, and fish could do nothing for themselves but wait for the metaphoric end of “the bell tolling for thee.”
All of the rotting comrades previously lifted from the sudden water rise, and subsequently deposited on Angelpond’s shore, their final resting place, would ironically eventually provide sustenance for the volunteer honeysuckle surviving to serve only its own needs.
To look on the brighter side of this metaphor, honeysuckle is providing some winter protection from howling winds for birds and small animals. Its fall berries nourished birds. It will bloom for bees in spring. So there really is something good to say about a honeysuckle scientifically designated an invasive.
Every flora and fauna of God’s creation has a place. Bad comes with good, hand in hand, as the Creator determined.
“A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to built up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. . .” — Ecclesiastes 3:2-4
It’s time to slip into Angelkeep’s 2022 dancing slippers.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
