deepundergroundpoetry.com
Suffering Stumped
From a hewn stump a green shoot
flickers in the morning dew
sunlight glistening attention to what
would otherwise be so easily missed
I wondered: has all of history been
reduced to merely this? A frail purity
of the gods deemed essential to
reinvigorate the next phase of life?
Civilisations come and go by definition
such human effort and worry labelled so much bling …
All this I can accept, but even so
the hewn stump represents a huge amount of suffering.
flickers in the morning dew
sunlight glistening attention to what
would otherwise be so easily missed
I wondered: has all of history been
reduced to merely this? A frail purity
of the gods deemed essential to
reinvigorate the next phase of life?
Civilisations come and go by definition
such human effort and worry labelled so much bling …
All this I can accept, but even so
the hewn stump represents a huge amount of suffering.
Published 5th Apr 2017
| Edited 7th Mar 2024
Author's Note
(photo credit: banter-snaps-97QgfSc4uGU-unsplash)
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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6th Apr 2017 00:58am
Awesome observation, Josh. Remnants of the housing the DNA of the future. It is written that trees sustain each other through conduits of root long after fallen.
Thus the sapling. It's Nature's built-in defense against genocide. Though I believe rainforests may be losing that battle...
Thus the sapling. It's Nature's built-in defense against genocide. Though I believe rainforests may be losing that battle...
6th Apr 2017 7:45pm
Thank you Ahavati. Yes, the books "The Secret Life of Plants" and "Secrets of the Soil" reveal an amazing 'other-life' going on beneath our feet. I hadn't quite seen it in terms of a defence against genocide - interesting thought.
6th Apr 2017 11:28pm
today I am the stump - tomorrow I will try to be the shoot :-)
fascinating piece :-)
fascinating piece :-)
7th Apr 2017 7:23pm
Thank you, David. Trying to come to terms with suffering as a seemingly indispensable part of the human condition - the toughest issue - still working on it.
You highlight the fact that no matter how savage the hewing the green shoots of recovery are never far behind. Sure, everything is changed, different, never to be as it was yet there's always hope anew.
5th May 2017 11:29am
Hi Blocat, thank you for reading and commenting. Sometimes the amount of pruning back seems disproportionate to the small green shoots but I have the trust that in the universal-accounting-system it's all worth it.
