The Flame of Life

In July, a couple of years ago, I was in Yea’s old Cemetery. In this sombre place of weathered stone and wrought iron, hard soil and lichen, the cemetery’s oldest headstones are in poor condition, contributing to the awareness of the brevity of life and the inevitability of death and decay.

In the brooding heaviness of a grey day in this place, a party of flame robins (Petroica phoenicia) was on the move. Perhaps half a dozen birds, of which 4 at least were males.

The contrast was heart-changing. The mood lifted, the beauty shone, it was like poetry.

To invert the solemn words from the Funeral liturgy, In the midst of death, we find the flame of life.