Swarthmore College - Halcyon Yearbook (Swarthmore, PA)

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The tree is there spread upward and we abou t it below, standing in group or alone. The tree becomes the answer sought, the order, the rhythm and sense that must be in all that flows about us all that spreads in concentric circles from us. It is more than us yet not so great. There are two movements: we step outward from the source imagin- ing we understand following the fiberous implications, involvements and fatalities with surety masked comfortable in our assumed knowledge of the order; we can move from the tangled cords and haze inward, in search of the core, uncertain, certain only of parts but never of wholes. The first movement is illusory: it is not for now when time and youth are rich — it is for then perhaps when we are silent as old men, all wealths but that one stolen from us. All we may know now is the search. It is said: ' There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. It is said: Soft you: a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know ' t. It is said: Ripeness is all. But this was spoken at the end, not in the beginning. Time and the Tree remain, but not our time and our tree. It is there and we about it in group or alone. Between I and Us there is a chasm: at once no bond yet all, all the myriad filaments, all we can speak of and all that is. Alone is a lie: We are, therefore I think; I think, therefore we are. If there is more it will be learned but once. 28