So I am going to come back now to the environmental theme that
runs through the book.
I'm not going to read you the title poem.
I will read you this small poem, which
was remembering many years ago, we all
learned about the butterfly effect, which
says a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa
and there is an enormous storm in China
some months later as a result. So that
was what sits behind this.
"No wind, no rain."
"No wind, no rain, the tree just fell, as a piece of fruit does.
But no, not fruit.
Not ripe.
Not fell.
It broke.
It shattered.
One cone's addition of resinous cell-sap, one small-bodied bird
arriving to tap for a beetle.
It shattered.
What word, what act was it we thought did not matter?"
And it actually did happen.
A still sunny day and an enormous old pine tree
just came down hard for no perceptible reason.