I was thinking on that again just a couple of weeks ago.
Drum and Diana Hadley and my wife, Masa, and I
went down the peninsula to La Paz.
Drove down and sitting there one afternoon
looking out over the desert and thinking about the food chains,
I realized the simple truth that all food, all eating, all life
is made possible by an excess of sexuality.
By more seeds than are necessary.
By more young being born than are necessary,
like millions of cod and Herring fry are born.
And that is what starts the whole food
chain for all the others.
And excess is born of every species
which allows the others to eat-- it's fantastic.
"Kyoto, Born in Spring Song."
There's an old Japanese folktale about an elderly couple
that had never been able to have a baby.
And one day the old man was out cutting bamboo and split
open a big bamboo and found a little tiny baby girl
about the size of a peach inside the bamboo.
And so they took her home and raised her.
[LAUGHTER]
They were very happy.
[LAUGHTER]
And there are other folktale motifs like that
especially in Asia.
Beautiful little children found in melons, in bamboo.
In a strangely glowing warbler egg, a perfect baby girl.
Baby, baby, tiny precious mice and worms.
Great majesty of Dharma turning, great dance of Vadra power.
Lizard baby by the fern, centipede baby
scrambling toward the wall.
Cat baby left to mew for milk alone.
Mouse baby too afraid to run.
Oh sing born in spring.
The weavers swallows babies in Nishijin, nests
below the eaves.
Glinting mother's wings swoop to the sound of loons.
And three fat babies with three human mothers every morning
doing laundry.
Good morning, how's your baby.
Tomoharu, Itsuko, and Kenji.
Mouse begin again.
Bushmen are laughing at the coyote tricking
that made us think machines.
Wild babies in the ferns and plums and weeds.