A Dirge

Anita Klein, "Betty and the Bird"

A Dirge

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Why were you born when the snow was falling? 

You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling, 

Or when grapes are green in the cluster, 

Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster 

For their far off flying 

From summer dying. 

Why did you die when the lambs were cropping? 

You should have died at the apples’ dropping, 

When the grasshopper comes to trouble, 

And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble, 

And all winds go sighing 

For sweet things dying. 

Christina Rossetti

    I need a good cry once in a while. Happy poems don't mean a thing without a sprinkling of sadness and grief. It's like salt. In this poem the question "why?" of someone who cannot answer, the irony of birth happening in Winter and death in Spring and the string of beautiful images - snowfall, grapes growing on a vine, Swallows flying, altogether make a poignant statement of contradiction and loss - life in death and death in life - it's beautiful and sad, and it's how I feel about life overall. It's the mix of tears and laughter that lies at the heart of everything.