A lifetime ago, November 30, 2016, it was a bit gloomy in Maine. A few berries still sparkled, Millie was a pup having fun with the apples, and a bunch of snow geese were flocking around a little inlet. Millie is older, and other than the pine tree by the water that has grown taller and taller, not much has changed.

I watched a movie the other night about an old man and his daughter, and someone in it quoted this little poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which came back to mind as I saw the geese, Millie, and the dormition of the landscape, which lacked a lovely light:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends

—It gives a lovely light!

I realized I had never studied Millay’s poems, and curiosity made me search. I came across one in particular that struck me as providential, and made me think of the magnificence of the rebirth of Notre-Dame de Paris by mere mortals.

Because while it had burnt like a candle, at both ends, I thought how sad it was to see it turn to rubble, or a lonely grave. But just a few years later we are witnessing its majestic “renascence”, a fitting word that the poet reflected on.

All my musings in an hour, all because of a few melancholy and unartistic photos. Go figure. And all because of a little poem!