YOU SIT BY THE BASE OF A GIANT TREE

YOU SIT BY THE BASE OF A GIANT TREE

You sit by the foot at the base of a giant sequoia differently
to how you sit by the foot of an elephant though as life it might
seem the same; the huge pachyderm might lift a foot and crush you
while you are so near even while awed to stillness by such utter
massiveness such sheer largesse, while the grounded other, being
more inert might still give a shake sky high and down a ton of mere
offshoot in grace like a heap of firewood to bury you but we take it for
granted that such a fast unfastening movement in a great tree would
be far less likely and fatally irregular though we know it happens we
expect our big end to be slower tho' we know things fall accelerating
yet we hardly admit that contemplation of life in real size decelerates
us back to a sort of snail pace as if it had some live mesmerising
power which brings us back to fellow feeling with its greatness, a sort
of claw extended on some mystic root that gnaws at us like growth.