Literally. The sand fell, the cliff fell, the earth fell away, and there was this tree on the edge of the beach, torn by its roots, out from the earth, where only recently it had been so secure. Nature does this to a tree; we humans do it to each other.
Hope has to spring eternal or how would we go on? This uprooted tree can still share its beauty, even in its death and decay. My people have lost their books and their houses and their bodies to tearing away, tearing away born of fear, of hubris, of hunger, of power-mongering, of ignorance, of hatred, of insecurity; and most of all, of forgetting. Forgetting who we are. Forgetting how we are.
I wrote on the Berlin wall, “Remember.”
I remember this tree.
We all need to remember Us.
Yes. The second we forget Us — really forget it, not set it aside for this or that good-natured rivalry — then we lose a vital part of ourselves.
And it is difficult to think what you and I and all other little people can do to remember. Maybe our daily work is the hopeful reminder to ourselves and others who see/hear/read/watch it?