"Surely the earth is not a passive thing, a mass without intention.  Just so much sediment, a crust, a molten core.  Filled with small betrayals, false deposits, slowly cooling because it has nothing better to do.

    I see the longer line of my lineage.  Wider than a certain father, a certain mother.  That the history of my family is this:

    That we have come from the water and the mud, raised ourselves to our amphibian elbows, then to the three-pointed gait.  Finally walking on two feet with our weak but upright backs.  Anchored in our shoes, clutching our paltry inclinations toward the good.

    Surely we are this, the earth's intention.  The evident groaning of the earth for its own freedom." Mary Rakow, The Memory Room. return