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No bit of the natural world is more valuable or more vulnerable than the tree bit. nothing is more like ourselves, standing upright, caught between heaven and earth, frail at the extremities, yet strong at the central trunk, and nothing is closer to us at the beginning and at the end, providing the timber boards that frame both the cradle and the coffin.
-Seamus Heaney
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No Bit Of The Natural World Is

Seamus Heaney
No bit of the natural world is more valuable or more vulnerable than the tree bit. nothing is more like ourselves, standing upright, caught between heaven and earth, frail at the extremities, yet strong at the central trunk, and nothing is closer to us at the beginning and at the end, providing the timber boards that frame both the cradle and the coffin.
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Strong Tree Heaven

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In the construction of houses, choice of woods is made. straight un-knotted timber of good appearance is used for the revealed pillars, straight timber with small defects is used for the inner pillars. timbers of the finest appearance, even if a little weak, is used for the thresholds, lintels, doors, and sliding doors, and so on. good strong timber, though it be gnarled and knotted, can always be used discreetly in construction.
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The forest stretched on seemingly forever with the most monotonous predictability, each tree just like the next - trunk, branches, leaves; trunk, branches, leaves. of course a tree would have taken a different view of the matter. we all tend to see the way others are alike and how we differ, and it's probably just as well we do, since that prevents a great deal of confusion. but perhaps we should remind ourselves from time to time that ours is a very partial view, and that the world is full of a great deal more variety than we ever manage to take in.
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The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. the tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.
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