Something's always hurting ... and something's always healing ... (Hexagram 18, WOUNDEDNESS)

Over the Mountains

Maybe someone stumbles across that child

lost weeks ago, now chilled and unconscious but breathing.

Maybe a friendly wanderer saved the child

for awhile, but had to go on, and this is the end.

(The world we all came from reaches out; its trees

embrace; its rocks come down ready to cover

us again. Moss clings to the feet and climbs

carefully, protecting its own. It wants us back.)

Now people carry the child, warm him;

"Save him," they say. Then he stirs and opens his eyes.

He doesn't want what he sees. He closes his eyes.

The slow tide of the forest takes him away.

(This doesn't happen just once; it happens again and again,

to the lost, to searchers and parents, to you, to me.)

~ William Stafford