First Draft

A tree is the perfect foil to gravity; gravity and its insidious ability to make that sweet pull downward at the end of the day seem like desire.

Fruit falls from the branch, as do leaves, so we know at least that a tree too is subject to the law.

But with all its force and strength a tree goes unequivocally in two directions at once. Poised at ground level, it finds the air above free and unexplored and the earth liquid with possibility. The greater the pressure gravity exerts upon it, the stronger and more obstinate it grows. A tree refuses any single, overweaning influence.

While living in complete compliance.

As one who is called both to the centre of the earth and to the sun.

All of that isn't much more than an observation, sweet one, a thoughtful one, but not much more, really. And yet, it sticks to me, heart and soul. The image is something I can't get out of my vision.

From a business point of view, it really has no market value. It can't employ anyone; I could put it on a t-shirt and try to sell it, but it's probably too long. I can't affix my having read it to my resume; nobody would hire me because I like it. I can't sell it, really. It's only a loving observation about trees, but it's one that I can't quite shake because, in some odd sense, this morning I'll look out at the trees on my yard in a way that's slightly different; I'll see them as creatures, like me, growing between time and eternity--look at that last line.

It's from Naked Trees, a series of prose poems by John Terpstra. He wrote it, I read it, and, my guess is, it isn't doing either of us any good financially.

But I feel rich, if I use rich as a metaphor. I'm richer for having read it. Thoreau might say that my bank account has grown, my portfolio is stronger because more diverse, and, I'm considerably better off if I see trees all around me as co-habitors God's own blessed world.

It's that kind of wealth of soul that attracts me to literature and has for more than 40 years. Observations, reflections, stories and poems--I'm vastly better off having read them, having found myself in them, having discovered my place. When I bike to school past those huge old lindens north of the house this morning, I'll feel just a little more well-heeled.

And now the question is, when I get to campus, can I sell that to students?

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John Terpstra, a fine poet and non-fiction writer, will be visiting those very students in a week or so, and I've created a blog with all kinds of similar Terpstra reflections and observations, which you can sample, freely, simply by going there--terpstradordt.blogspot.com. Who knows, maybe you'll get rich. Just click on the the pic at the top of the column to the left.