We start out thin and green

“We start out thin and green, and each time the sky grows dark, we think we will break, but the downpour makes us grow, though never straight, always twisting for the light, and, strangely, the more we reach above the earth, the deeper something in us fingers its way down, and it is this – our unseen fingers reaching for the core –  that keeps us from blowing away. Now there is no more running and very little swaying, and up till now, there have been many languages, though none that could be heard, just a creak at dawn and a moan at night, and sooner or later, we are brought down. It doesn’t matter how. We are undone. But stacked we burn, and here the poetry rises from us, leaving wisdom in the ash.”

~Mark Nepo quoting an old man he met at a gathering

* I took the photo taken in Sagres, Portugal

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