Sublime

Death is everywhere, oppressive and beautiful.

Life is a battle between the Maker and His creation.

Your kind never sees us whole. You miss the half of it, and more. There’s always as much belowground as above.

In place of explanation, memory.

The boy thinks: Something slow and purposeful wants to turn every human building into soil.

His hand moves and the thought forms: Who needs anything, except food? And those like Mimas who make their own food—freest of all.

“We have to learn to love this place. We need to become natives.”

She sees it in one great glimpse of flashing gold: trees and humans, at war over the land and water and atmosphere. And she can hear, louder than the quaking leaves, which side will lose by winning.

Their kinship will work like an unfolding book. The past always comes clearer, in the future.