Metamorphosis: Thoughts for Earth Day, 2014

—Bunny Bowen

Thank you, little root, for saving my life today.

You refused to go into the chipper last week... first by catching the attention of the worker, then again when he handed you to me. You spoke to us.

So here we are: me leaning up against a post, on the downwind side of a brisk spring breeze, which takes away the abraded dust; you moving around in my left hand, presenting different surfaces to the action of the sandpaper in my right.

You've shown me what to keep and what to take off.
You don't look like anything in particular... even when my eye searches involuntarily for pattern.

This curve reminds me of the hock of a deer, another of the twist of a lizard's tail. Is that the head of a snow goose? Yet your entirety conveys abstract concepts rather than one representational image.

Here, you are motion, there repose. You are comfortable resting in many positions, at the whim of the beholder.

Root of the plum tree which will no more delight me with spring fragrance or tart purple fruit: myriad borer holes betray the cause of your passing.

In your fragmented state you now begin a new visual, tactile life.
May you find the company of another who needs what you have to teach.