Why Blog? Why Write?

Words are like roots, aren't they? 

They anchor idea,

pull our sun-striving to earth, where others can share with us,

share ideas, and not just this big, big big ball of dirt,

this circle that we break up into square plots and call them “mine”. 

Words written DOWN are pulled out of the air,

not caged, not even tamed, but perhaps befriended.

Words shared can be seen by pairs of eyes

different pairs of eyes

from different angles,

roots spreading, wider wider,

now not mine, but ours.

word…world.

Words are like wings, aren’t they?

Perhaps they are like those maple seeds

dry, high in the branches, so far from the roots

but attached, sharing DNA

now falling, not down, but around,

slowed in their descent by the spinning of it,

the turning, twirling, winding

the slowing and now the blowing,

the blowing in the wind

the going where the wind blows

the landing,

the resting on different land,

the rooting in a different place

in a different mind

the roots going down in different soil

the seed of idea the same

but the downness of the roots

growing in to a different angle,

toward the same still-hot center

and the sun-striving up-ness

is a different up

but up nonetheless,

all of those same words

all over this same world

all sun-striving the same up

on a globe wise enough to turn,

giving each up a chance,

time in the light of the same sun,

(universal solipsism; who but God?)

sharing the enlightenment.

My granddaughters watch the red dots on the map, (Click for a link) and learn about books, and walls, and countries.  When the spinning stops, their roots will grab, and grow, and they will provide shade, and millions of seed-ideas called words.  To everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season.  A time for wings, and a time for roots, for words sent out and words taken in.  (Click for a link to Ecclesiastes 3) 

Goethe was right.  The two greatest gifts that parents share with children are roots and wings.  And the greatest gifts we share with each other are words, the giving and the receiving of them. 

 FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.