Dreams and Stones

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THE TREE OF THE WORLD, LIKE EVERY OTHER TREE, at the beginning of the season of vegetation puts out tiny delicate golden leaves which with time acquire a dark green hue and a silvery sheen. Then they become yellow and red as if they were burning in a live flame and when they have burned their last they go brown and fall to earth ragged and full of holes, akin to pieces of paper turned to ash or rusted-through tin cans. From the first moments when the greenery is freshest and the greatest number of birds are singing amongst the branches a damp and dark countertree is growing into the depths of the earth, infested with vermin. The underground trunk is an extension of the trunk above ground; every bough is connected by an invisible water duct to a counterbough oppressed by tons of earth.

As the season of vegetation draws to a close the tree of the world is laden with fruit. The fruit ripens, falls and rots. In each fruit there is a seed and in that seed the germ of the tree and the countertree, crown and root. All the future seasons of vegetation await their turn in the seeds, in the germs, in the germs of the germs. The fruit belongs to the tree but contains within itself a whole future tree along with the fruit that will grow upon it.

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