Elizabeth Raby

A Celebration of the Life and Memory of

Elizabeth Raby

On Zoom Sunday February 6 at 2:00 p.m. Mountain Time, 4:00 p.m. Eastern

Link to register

Family and friends will be attending from FL, PA, NJ, New England, NM, CO, AZ, OK, TX, IL, Romania.

Many people will want to read/speak, so there will be a time limit, probably around 5 minutes.

Choose one of Elizabeth’s poems to read and/or one of your own. And for some, what you might want to say.

Donations in Elizabeth’s name may be made to Teatro Paraguas

Living on Earth

Desperate for a drink

this dry winter,

an unlikely amalgam of birds

clusters on the birdbath's rim.

A flicker pecks briskly

at frozen water. The black grin

of feathers across his chest

disappears and reappears

as his head bends and lifts,

bends and lifts.

The other birds are wary of his bill.

House finches and towhees,

juncos and sparrows,

even a bright goldfinch,

wait their chance, do not fly away.

They say the ever-expanding universe

burst out

of a marble-sized bit of matter

in a trillion trillionth of a second.

From that unimaginable moment

to this rich speck

of struggling abundance—

what are the impossible odds

that I should be here as witness?

Elizabeh Raby