Are man and nature connected or it is all a mere coincidence? |
A Mere Coincidence It was winter and the trees were bare. Black branches against the tangerine sunset looked like thousands of hands, their fingers stretching to the heavens or tributaries reaching for the sea. I looked at the trees on the horizon and then at my own fingers, hands, the barely visible veins, the miniscule capillaries that journey from the center of me to the distant points, not unlike the rivers or the branches reach toward their destinations. Leaves crackled beneath my feet as I squatted down and took a single oak leaf in my hand. It was then that I noticed how the veins stretched from stem to lobes, branching out like a raised pen and ink drawing of a naked tree or the tangle of nerves flowing from the spine. A picture came to my mind, the Amazon basin with its tributaries sprawled from the Atlantic to deepest rain forests or the great Mississippi Delta when viewed from the sky with its silvery tendrils flowing to the Gulf like the liquid silver necklaces the Native Americans crafted in Santa Fe, where water and trees are revered for their scarcity. Even organizational flow charts and family trees follow this pattern as do interstates, highways, rural routes if viewed from the sky or on a map. They are the man-made circulatory system of a nation, and man’s attempt to create order out of chaos. How is it then, that we all know the shape of a bare tree on the horizon, the path of blood vessels illuminated by an MRI, the topography of land cut by rivers and tributaries, the sterile office flow chart, the cauda equina fanning from our own spine down like the tail of a horse from which it was named, and the shape of veins from a child’s leaf rubbing and yet, we still choose to believe this is all a mere coincidence? SWPoet _____________________________________________________________________________________________ To the Reviewer: Below is simply a try at concrete poetry just for fun. However, the top version is the one that I would like to be used for reviews. If you want to mention or review both, that's fine. The words aren't identical as I've made some changes since doing the one below. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ A Mere Coincidence It was winter and the trees were bare. Black branches against the orange sky looked like thousands of fingers stretching to the heavens or tributaries and rivers flowing to the ocean. I looked at the trees and then at my own fingers, hands, the barely visible veins, the miniscule capillaries that spread from the center of me to the distant points, not unlike those branches, not unlike water on its journey to the sea. Leaves crackled beneath my feet and I picked one up to examine a single oak leaf, how the veins reach from stem to leaftips, branching out like a raised pen and ink drawing of a naked tree or the tangle of nerves branching down from the spine. A picture came to mind, the Amazon basin, tributaries flowing to the Atlantic, or the great Mississippi Delta, the view from an airplane, silvery tendrils flowing to the Gulf like the liquid silver necklaces the Native Americans crafted in Santa Fe, where the water and trees are revered for their scarcity. Even flow charts and family trees follow this pattern as do interstates, highways, rural routes, the manmade circulatory system of a nation, if seen from a plane or on a map. How is it that we all know the shape of a bare tree on the horizon, the path of blood vessels illuminated by an MRI, the topography of land cut by rivers and tributaries, the sterile office flow chart, the Cauda Equina branching from our own spine down to our toes, and the shape of the veins of a leaf from a child’s crayon leaf rubbing? And yet, we still choose to believe this is all a mere C O I N C I D E N C E . SWPoet |