The wind, the birds, do not sound poorer but clearer, recalling our agony, and the way we danced. - Denise Levertov

all of us know he means we mustn't, any of us, lose touch with the source, pretend it's not there, cover over the mineshaft of passion

He told of journeys, of where sun and moon go while we stand in dark, of an earth-journey he dreamed he would take some day deeper than roots ... He told of the dreams of man, wars, passions, griefs, and I, a tree, understood words – ah, it seemed my thick bark would split like a sapling's that grew too fast in the spring when a late frost wounds it.

Just when you seem to yourself nothing but a flimsy web of questions, you are given the questions of others to hold in the emptiness of your hands, songbird eggs that can still hatch if you keep them warm, butterflies opening and closing themselves in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure their scintillant fur, their dust. You are given the questions of others as if they were answers to all you ask. Yes, perhaps this gift is your answer.