Walnuts are good for the brain
They help our brains fire up for problem-solving
Stimulating higher brain activity in the gamma range
But they also look like our marvelous brains.
And the large-jointed Japanese Knotweed
Is good medicine for inflamed joints.
By the same token Bloodroot,
With its red root and red extract,
Has been used for hundreds of years
As a blood purifier.
Saxifrage, which breaks apart rocks as it grows,
Has been used to relieve kidney stones.
Alkanet, with its viper-shaped seeds
Was used to treat snake bites,
And the coiled shoots of the herb Scorpius
Will help with a scorpion sting. . .
I have just described the anthropocentric universe.
Was it the Walnut that gave creator the idea
Of creating the human brain?
Or is nature just trying to make us feel welcome?
One time when my friend and I were on a walk
He saw the face of an old man in a tree.
He pointed it out
And got angry
When I didn't respond.
I saw the old man's face in the bark.
It was hard to miss,
But the reason I didn't respond was because
I am tired of focusing on all the signatures in nature
That seem to be there
To help us feel at home
By accommodating our projections
Of the familiar?
Why should we eat Walnuts to fire up our brains?
Why shouldn't we just take care of our brains
And eat Walnuts just because we like them
And be grateful?
And why shouldn't we tolerant those invasive knotweeds
Just because they seem so happy with their lives
Growing by the road
And not because they heal our arthritis.
(They are actually quite beautiful.)
Why should we tolerate or like things
Because anything?
We should just like and respect things in nature,
Period.
Next time you pass an old person's face
Try to see a tree in that person.
And next time you are under an old tree
Just be with it.
It is an old being to be sure
But I promise you
It does not have a face.
