What is timber to a tree, thrusting up and drawing water strenuously? If each cell -- a billion eyes -- could see, what would the timber say, cut loose and free?
"1st, the world is cut in two and like the wind in both we move, on and through. Then we are stripped and smoothed like saplings new, scattered like seeds, and told 'to do'."
"That's a word,"the tree replies,"we do not know. 'To do,' is it something like to strive and grow?"
"Yes," timber now,"like striving. Though -- growing? Its a sorting out, so really, no. We take iron from water, put one here one there, take plants from soil, salt from air. Split sap from men, strip creatures of skin and hair. When done, we mix them again. 'To do' is forever."
"Oh how I marvel at all you have been and seen. Like birds tell, like you've grown wings!"
"Well, birds are light, They lightly dance and lightly sing. They live quick, but we are lumbering things…" Said at length the timber to the tree, "It is good your soil is dry and stony, that you grow crookedly. It is better to be bent and crooked than straight and strong like me. 'To do' is much too fast, so different than 'to be.' At last," said the timber as an ax, "it is your turn. But your 'to do' will only be, like a forest, to burn."
"1st, the world is cut in two and like the wind in both we move, on and through. Then we are stripped and smoothed like saplings new, scattered like seeds, and told 'to do'."
"That's a word,"the tree replies,"we do not know. 'To do,' is it something like to strive and grow?"
"Yes," timber now,"like striving. Though -- growing? Its a sorting out, so really, no. We take iron from water, put one here one there, take plants from soil, salt from air. Split sap from men, strip creatures of skin and hair. When done, we mix them again. 'To do' is forever."
"Oh how I marvel at all you have been and seen. Like birds tell, like you've grown wings!"
"Well, birds are light, They lightly dance and lightly sing. They live quick, but we are lumbering things…" Said at length the timber to the tree, "It is good your soil is dry and stony, that you grow crookedly. It is better to be bent and crooked than straight and strong like me. 'To do' is much too fast, so different than 'to be.' At last," said the timber as an ax, "it is your turn. But your 'to do' will only be, like a forest, to burn."
“To do goes on and on”
ReplyDeleteI how I marvel what you must have looked upon”