Just a Stick

Its just a stick,
In the same way a temple is just stones.

Or, like a tree, unfolding its boughs and leaves in wind and sun, reaching its roots in relationship with soil and microbes, fungi and minerals; living its life in the ever present moment of change, in the inextricable connection with sun, earth and the fullness of things, is just a tree!

And this stick is etched, some would say, by larvae boring and eating its substance under its bark.

Some would say that. But this stick is etched by its relationships with things; by its relationship with what has been and what is. And what is etched is script. And that script says:

Look upon me and know.
For I am the story of life.
Upon my body are the marks of your existence.
For I am life as you are life,
And seeing me you see yourself.

As life I give form,
And I consume what I have formed.
But in the midst of my creation and destruction
I mark upon my substance
The passage of experience.
And experience forms valleys and mountains,
Brightness and shade,
Misery and laughter.
These valleys and peaks,
With the light and shade,
Are the script with which I write
The journal of my being,
The record of my life and death.

What does my script tell you?
Is it a story of hope,
Or a record of despair?
Does it tell of love gained,
Peaks scaled,
Of dreams made real?
Does it speak of despair
Or long loneliness?

Perhaps it unfolds the mysteries
That lie behind everything,
That connect and shine
In common things.
Or maybe it stays in your perception
As a series of meaningless scrawls
The work of random soulless events
Upon something that itself is mute.

For I am Life, and can be only
What you bring to me.
I am a stick,
Saying so much,
Or so little,
Depending upon your art!

Copyright ©2005 Tony Crisp