by August Neven du Mont (1866–1909)
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When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
― Herman Hesse, Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte
I imagine what it must be like to stay hidden, disappear in the dusky nothing and stay still in the night. It’s not sadness, though it may sound like it. I’m thinking about people and trees and how I wish I could be silent more, be more tree than anything else, less clumsy and loud, less crow, more cool white pine, and how it’s hard not to always want something else, not just to let the savage grass grow.
― Ada Limon, Bright Dead Things
My digitally enhanced version of the above painting can be downloaded as a high-res 7” x 5” @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.
Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.