Sonnet 399

Were I but yet the pitch-dark crow that files

Or yet a plain drab beetle on the ground,

A golden eagle that ascends on high

Or Yeti crab within a crevice found;

Here still the blood of life would course my veins

Imbuing so an essence old as time

Thus where on high or yet below the main

I share a bond that no soul can decry.

A life is still a life though great or small

And though our bonds be knit by narrow strands;

Whether we run, fly, slither, swim or crawl,

All grace born of four letters in the sand.

So if these brethren vanish, n’er to see —

How ever lonely would our planet be.

Loubert S Suddaby poems