The Earth

The Earth


Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon
the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up
to a particular landscape in his experience,
to look at it from as many angles as he can,
to wonder about it,
to dwell upon it.

He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at
every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon
it. He ought to imagine the creatures there
and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to
recollect the glare of noon and all the colors of the dawn
and dusk. For we are held by more than the force of gravity
to the earth. It is the entity from which we are sprung,
and that into which we are dissolved in time.
The blood of the whole human race is invested in it.
We are moored there, rooted as surely, as
deeply as are the ancient redwoods and bristlecones.

Navarre Scott Momaday