The Lumberjack

Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: Opinion

Let us embark, you and I
On a windward journey, as the crow flies.
We will transcend the confines of human existence
And descend to the heart of nature's resistance.
At night's first submission to the children of light
We will shed our shackles, and at once take flight.

Our indefatigable solar friend, after a
brief rendezvous with her lunar counterpart and an
ensuing night-time ripening of the womb, once again
gives birth to the innumerable shafts of light, that,
when combined, we call day. A select few of these
beams of luminescence successfully breach trailing
draperies of an intricate ivy pattern, and in reaching
their destination, find themselves amongst a residing
adorned with intermittent redwood paneling, ceilings
of indeterminate height, flawless decor, and a
background melody reminiscent of the "Sounds of
Nature." In the midst of this peaceful refuge, a
beatific mother attentively watches over her young
twins romping around and tumbling over one another in
play, across her chambers. Since times of an
unattainable yore, her entire lineage has dwelled in
this very same haven, unaltered and without a
cessation of ownership for thousands of years. Here,
and only here, is home-abruptly, serenity
instantaneously manifests itself into a mechanical
shriek, simultaneously spawning a bullet that finds
its home in the mother's flank. She is immediately
immobilized, her only thought is of her children-which
is at once cut short by a subsequent bullet to the
head. The children, now orphans, flee into the
unknown. The hunter approaches his kill…

The babies escape, yet you see in their eyes,
Four mirrored reflections of how each of them dies.
Upon losing their mother they lost all assistance
In acquiring the tools that we call "persistence."
Try as they must, they succumb to their plight
And slowly diminish 'til they're part of the night.

…The aforementioned gunshot reports extensively

Continued...

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