all petals are this flower,
and abundance is a lie.
For all fruit is the same,
the trees are one, alone,
and the earth, a single flower.
Pablo Neruda
When I read that I thought of how I sometimes look at one of my sons, and see him when he was two, climbing the concrete dolphin at the Cobble Hill Park and laughing, or at the Botanic Garden running beneath the cherry trees, or on the old green couch listening to me read Blueberries for Sal; and I see a million other specific moments--they are all within him--he is an adult now, but he is still that child, that moment, those moments.
But I don't look at him and see all boys. What is Neruda telling us?
It could be seeing the world in a grain of sand, like Blake; but I don't think it's that either.
I can't explain what it means, but I can feel it, I can almost grasp it--it takes me somewhere beyond itself; the way music does, but which words rarely do.
