collected

selected from other authors or sources

I Vowed that I Would Be a Tree

I vowed that I would be a tree.
      I went up to an oak and said,
“What shall I do that I might be
A beech, an oak, or any tree,
      With branches leafing from my head?”

There was a sound of sap that ran,
      There was a wind of leaves that spoke.
“So you would cease to be a man,
And be a green tree, if you can,
      A pine, a beech, an oak?”

I answered, “I am tired of men,
      As tired as they of me.
I fain would not return again
To the perplexity of men,
      But straightway be a tree.”

There was a sound of winds that went
      To summon every oldest tree,
To hold their austere Parliament
About the thing had craved to be
      Elect of their calm company.

There was a sound of bursting tide,
      There was a wash of clanging foam,
A crumbling shore, a bursting tide.
There came a thunder that outcried,
      “Go, wretched mortal, get thee home!

“Who art thou that would be a tree,
      Least of the weeds that shoot and pass?
Bide till a Wisdom come, and see
Before a mortal be a tree,
      He first must be a blade of grass!”

—Louis Golding (1895–1958), “I Vowed that I Would Be a Tree,” Sorrow of War, 1919

Lonesome animals

“A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn’t telling or teaching or ordering. Rather he seeks to establish a relationship of meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — ‘Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.’”

—John Steinbeck, letter to Peter Benchley, 1956

The past is here again

My mom saved the local newspaper, The Arizona Republic, from the day I was born, in October 1973. It cost 10¢, by the way. And even though it was more than half a century ago, much of it feels eerily recent:

• In the Grin and Bear It  comic by George Lichty, the head of the Cost of Living Council says: “The economic situation is improving, gentlemen! The average family can now afford everything except food, clothing and shelter!”

• “highly inflationary” newsprint price hike causing newspapers to consider subscription price increases

• “Don’t let high interest rates spook you”

• “Buy home now before costs rise”

• labor shortages

• worker strikes

• gun violence

• resistance to gun laws

• Today’s chuckle: “The government is concerned about the population explosion, while the population is concerned about the government explosion.”

• “State fair, like everything, is changing with the times”

• Dunkin’ pumpkin donuts

• “Terra not so firma as we’ve always been led to believe…. the whole North American continent is constantly rotating, tilting, cracking, sinking, rising and otherwise going through scary writhings.” (Lowell Parker)

• “Practice of acupuncture, that ancient Chinese needle treatment that turns patients into human porcupines, isn’t endorsed by the American medical profession but is gaining popularity anyway.”

• “‘Sex-change operations have become so well accepted that that some insurance companies will pay for them,’” New York physician Roberto C. Granato reported, “because transsexualism has become ‘such a well-known and accepted condition’… Transsexuals, he said, live and work as members of the opposite sex, and when they undergo sex-change surgery they ‘leave their anxiety on the operating table.’” (Associated Press)

• “Impeachment panel splits on party lines”

• “President Nixon won’t be impeached; Congress hasn’t the heart for it… If he is not impeached, the House of Representatives will have been guilty of gross dereliction in duty… The man ought to be impeached. The facts positively demand it… And what would the President be charged with? There is such an abundance of possibilities… one hardly knows where to begin.” (William Raspberry)

• In Phoenix, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller sounded “like a presidential candidate by taking political pokes at welfare chiselers, dope pushers, and big bureaucracies…” The governor “made it plain he was a party man by applauding Barry Goldwater and John Rhodes, with whom he has had ideological differences in the past…” Rockefeller “carefully avoided giving direct answers to such politically divisive questions as whether President Nixon should resign and if he was right in firing the Watergate special prosecutor… ‘The hard reality is that throughout the country, there has been a blurring of our sharp focus on what is right and what is wrong,’ he said. ‘There has been a growing tendency to cut corners, to think it’s smart to beat the system… The shock of Watergate can and must make all Americans realize that we must return to our basic belief in individual integrity and honesty.’” (Robert Reilly)

• “I would like to ask this question:  where are the decent Christians that remain so hush-hush concerning sinful, indecent people?” (M. Hale)

• “Senator urging suspension of Nixon’s pal as bank chief”

• “World is on brink of war”

• United Nations sends troops to police the Middle East.

• “Corporate vote gifts criticized”

• “GM complains despite earnings of $267 million”

• “Energy management urged for businesses”

• Two typhoons in Manila inflicted $2.3 million in damages earlier this month. A tropical storm is lashing the East Coast.

• Today’s prayer: “Giving us the ability to think must surely be Your greatest gift, O Lord. Help us to always use the power of thinking to its utmost when faced with indecision. Amen.”

Wilderness pathways

“The wilderness has the power to exert enormous influence on the mind of a man freshly arrived from civilization, especially if he lives alone and has but little contact with other people; some that I have known could not take the solitude, the absence of comfort and reassurance offered by the presence of other humans.

“Such men have become effete in terms of personal survival in the face of natural challenges, the city is too much with them, and they don’t last. There are also those who go too far the other way, becoming misanthropes… these are the withdrawers, and they are found sprinkled loosely wherever there is a forest or a jungle, like seeds that have lost the ability to germinate in cultivated soil.

“But between the quitters and the lone stayers, there is a third kind — indeed, there may be more than that, for all I know — in whom the wilderness acts as a catalyst and who, after they have experienced both the wild and the civilized, begin to form new values, to explore unknown pathways, and to realize that nature is an endlessly patient teacher with an infinite capacity to stimulate thought and to sharpen the hunger for knowledge. That is how the wilderness affected me…”

—R. D. Lawrence (1921–2003), The North Runner, 1979

A Teeny-Tiny Ghost Story

My parents used to read this story to my brothers and me when we were in grade school — after dark, in scary voices. I loved it! The book set that the story is in eventually ended up in their attic for many years, but today we came across it while cleaning and those cherished childhood memories have now come to live on my bookshelves. —tg

“TEENY-TINY”

Reprinted from James Orchard Halliwell, Esq., “Fireside Nursery Stories,” Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales: A Sequel to the Nursery Rhymes of England, 1849.

This simple tale seldom fails to rivet the attention of children, especially if well told. The last two words should be said loudly with a start. It was obtained from oral tradition, and has not, I believe, been printed. –JOH, Brixton Hill, Surrey, April 1849

Once upon a time there was a teeny-tiny woman lived in a teeny-tiny house in a teeny-tiny village. Now, one day this teeny-tiny woman put on her teeny-tiny bonnet, and went out of her teeny-tiny house to take a teeny-tiny walk. And when this teeny-tiny woman had gone a teeny-tiny way, she came to a teeny-tiny gate; so the teeny-tiny woman opened the teeny-tiny gate, and went into a teeny-tiny churchyard. And when this teeny-tiny woman had got into the teeny-tiny churchyard, she saw a teeny-tiny bone on a teeny-tiny grave, and the teeny-tiny woman said to her teeny-tiny self, “This teeny-tiny bone will make me some teeny-tiny soup for my teeny-tiny supper.” So the teeny-tiny woman put the teeny-tiny bone into her teeny-tiny pocket, and went home to her teeny-tiny house.

Now when the teeny-tiny woman got home to her teeny-tiny house, she was a teeny-tiny tired; so she went up her teeny-tiny stairs to her teeny-tiny bed, and put the teeny-tiny bone into a teeny-tiny cupboard. And when this teeny-tiny woman had been to sleep a teeny-tiny time, she was awakened by a teeny-tiny voice from the teeny-tiny cupboard, which said, “Give me my bone!” And this teeny-tiny woman was a teeny-tiny frightened, so she hid her teeny-tiny head under the teeny-tiny clothes, and went to sleep again. And when she had been to sleep again a teeny-tiny time, the teeny-tiny voice again cried out from the teeny-tiny cupboard a teeny-tiny louder, “Give me my bone!” This made the teeny-tiny woman a teeny-tiny more frightened, so she hid her teeny-tiny head a teeny-tiny further under the teeny-tiny clothes. And when the teeny-tiny woman had been to sleep again a teeny-tiny time, the teeny-tiny voice from the teeny-tiny cupboard said again a teeny-tiny louder, “Give me my bone!” And this teeny-tiny woman was a teeny-tiny bit more frightened, but she put her teeny-tiny head out of the teeny-tiny clothes, and said in her loudest teeny-tiny voice, “TAKE  IT!”