FINS…FEATHERS…FOUR LEGGEDS…& TWO LEGGEDS TOO?
I SIT HERE in the middle of a forest where woods and streams surround me. The overwhelming growth consumes me as my limitations in perceiving things frantically attempt to make an immediate capture.
I BEGIN naming things. That’s a leaf…a branch…a tree…a brook…the sky. Time and again I catch myself, for to look at that same flower without any name, I begin to see miniature worlds of wonder.
Once merely a rock riddled with algae, now becomes a moss covered palace of velvet green splendor. The trees become instruments of a mighty orchestra. The streams and brooks become the voice of a thundering chorus. The sky becomes maestro in shading and lighting.
I STAND in the middle of civilization with a busy metropolis surrounding me. I find myself thinking…buildings…traffic…people.
When I LOOK AGAIN, buildings become variations of fascinating form, traffic becomes a symbol of our threatening yet ever changing norm.
Instead of seeing people, I SEE individual persons. Masses of gender suddenly appear in likeness of one another yet difference in character. When I look very closely, I see in one single human form all the combinations of these masses in miniature.
Males look like females who look like males and females look like males who look like females.
I see with amazement how this very sight models the schools of fish in the ocean, each looking different yet resembling the other. I can see in birds, plants and animals, themselves as relatives to the WHOLE SCHEME of things.
Everywhere I go I see reflections of myself and others. I am warmed by the statement “humans are created equal” yet I am cooled by the devastating ‘hole’ it has left in the WHOLE of humankind. We are created equal ONLY in the way that we are equipped with the same basic tools, WE ARE NOT EQUALS IN THE WAY IN WHICH WE USE THEM.
Author/Elaine Neihardt Smith www.motionOsis.com