The Inner Valley

Hui Tzu said to Chuang, "I have a big tree, the kind they call a "stinktree." The trunk is so distorted, so full of knots, no one can get a straight plank out of it. The branches are so crooked you cannot cut them up in any way that makes sense." "There it stands beside the road. No carpenter will even look at it. Such is your teaching - big and useless." Chuang Tzu replied, "Have you ever watched the wildcat crouching, watching his prey. The prey leaps this way, and that way, high and low, and at last lands in the trap. And have you seen the Yak? Great as a thundercloud, he stands in his might. Big? Sure, but he can't catch mice!" "So for your big tree, no use? Then plant it in the wasteland, in emptiness. Walk idly around it, rest under its shadow. No axe or bill prepares its end. No one will ever cut it down." "Useless? You should worry!" ******* Thomas Merton  (Prades, France, January 31, 1915 ~ Bangkok, Thaila

The death of a man is like the fall of a mighty nation That had valiant armies, captains, and prophets, And wealthy ports and ships over all the seas, But now it will not relieve any besieged city, It will not enter into any alliance, Because its cities are empty, its population dispersed, Its land once bringing harvest is overgrown with thistles, Its mission forgotten, its language lost, The dialect of a village high upon inaccessible mountains. ******* Czesław  Miłosz  (Szetejnie, Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire, 30 June 1911~ Kraków, Poland, 14 August 2004).   ◙ Artwork:  Louis Édouard Fournier