Writing

But We Can't Live

By: Honor Giardini

Walking into an old growth forest quiets you; even if you didn't think you were making any noise. The bark absorbs the sound of your breath.

I can only hear the light crunching of my feet

on fallen fern fronds

And the bold laughter of a bird.

There is a deer surrounded by redwoods; their shadows lining the meadow like ghosts.

I notice him as he lifts his head from the grass that sways like one thousand golden dancers. His antlers brush his back as he reaches for the needles of the douglas fir that dance above his tongue. Two children, about 8 years old, cut through the grass on bikes. Their voices crackle through the air like sparks flying out of a fire.

The deer stands like if he moves the world will come crashing down. He stands for five minutes before he is brave enough to make noise again, in the world.

When humans are afraid we press our hands against the walls of time, looking in the dark for an escape.. When humans are confronted with fear we freeze. We are silent. When we run out of ways to run we stop.

Our existence is this helpless groping of closed boxes. This stubborn pounding of times’ inescapable iron cell. We are powerless and knowledgeable witnesses of our time-lines. We can see our death coming from the moment we can think. And, against all odds, we live. With all the persistence of the world we try. We run back alleys into our fate. We paint, cry, punch and calculate. We run at death with fire, we fend it off with microscopes. Life is not designed for the audience to know how the play ends, but we do god dammit and we won't let the curtains close without a fight. Because we are humans we do not wander into the inevitable, but are pushed into it.

When humans were created, god probably thought we would be gone by now. But when they tried to get rid of us, we lay, like a tick, flat on the ground refusing to die. It threw fire at us; we walked out scorched and holding torches. It gave us disease and we grew ill. Then like children catching a spider, we stalked outside of death's door, throwing a jar over the eight-legged killer. We battle with our mother earth, who is, like us, doggedly persistent. We act as if we are in a rather beautiful cage that is about to be dropped off a cliff.

I have only lived 14 years but I have learned that we are the cage. I have learned that we are caged and we are cages, I have learned that it is necessary to say not I, not you, not me, but we. Because I was born into this mess, because we are holding the broom. And with our learning we sweep back the dust. We are the cage: the iron in the bars and the concrete on the floor. We are the awful, crazy, wonderful cage. We our our own lives. Our own imprisonment. We are part of the rivers that tumble playfully towards the ocean. We are students of the forests that reach for the light yawning and showing us how to smile at the sun. We only have 72.6 short years to smile at the sun.

We can't live because everything is on fire. Because How can we enjoy life when it is deadly?

We cant but we will. Because we are humans and words are at once powerful, and meaningless. We can not, but the bumblebee can not fly? Our eyes must glisten at the creek, and our feet must back away from the bear. Because we only have 72.6 years. We must accept, like the deer has, that life is the bearandthecreek. It is the ticksandthegrass. It is the snakeandalog. The deer does not know about the cage, or the cliff. He knows that the fears of us living things are not things we overcome, but fears we live with. He knows that the spider is more than an eight legged killer. He knows that the redwoods are beautiful, that the rain pattering on his ears is necessary, and even amazing. He knows that the wild is not comfortable, nor should it be, He knows that we are fire and we must burn and be burned. We must kill and be killed to survive. Because what is wrong in living to live? In surviving to be hurt over and over again, and loving it?