Words/Birds
A Madrone Lodge text.
What works for words may not work for things, and to say that two sayings that contradict each other cannot both be true is not to say that opposites do not exist. The word is not the thing; word and thing have each their own way. It is true that a town is made of stone, clay, and wood; it is true that a town is made of people. These words do not deny each other at all. It is true that a bird’s way and the wind blowing make a feather fall; it is true that finding that feather in my way I understand that it has fallen for me. Those words deny each other in part. It is true that everything that is must be as it is, and that nothing is but the play of illusion upon the void; it is true that everything is and it is true that nothing is. These words deny each other wholly. The world of our life is the weaving that holds them together while holding them apart. The world is the bridge between the walls of a canyon, the banks of a river in an abyss, and words are the birds that fly across and across. They cannot be in two places at the same time. But they can cross and come back. It takes all one’s life to cross the bridge to the other side. But the birds fly back and forth across the canyon, singing and speaking from one side to the other.
- Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin, page 330; Bantam Books edition, 1986; ISBN 0-553-26280-7
