“Rootless and restless and warmblooded, we
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blaze in the flare that blinds us to that slow,
tall, fraternal fire of life as strong
now as in the seedling two centuries ago.”
– Ursula K LeGuin
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers,” wrote Herman Hesse in his Wandering Notes and Sketches, as he paid homage to what we can learn from forests of silent, giant masters. Walt Whitman wrote: “one does not wonder at the old story fables of people falling into love-sickness with trees, seiz’d extatic with the mystic realism of the resistless silent strength in them — strength, which after all is perhaps the last, completest, highest beauty.” This same mystical compulsion is also beautifully expressed in Ursula le Guin’s short poem, Kinship, in which she explores the primal ties that connect all life forms, while sitting with the tree and “the mild, long heat of its being.“
Kinship
Very slowly burning, the big forest tree
stands in the slight hollow of the snow
melted around it by the mild, long
heat of its being and its will to be
root, trunk, branch, leaf, and know
earth dark, sun light, wind touch, bird song.
Rootless and restless and warmblooded, we
blaze in the flare that blinds us to that slow,
tall, fraternal fire of life as strong
now as in the seedling two centuries ago.
Ursula K LeGuin (1929-2018)
Originally Published in Orion Magazine