Man Is Always Marveling At

Man Inhabits A Realm Half In And Half Out Of Nature, His Mind Reaching Forever Beyond The Tool, The Uniformity, The Law, Into Some Realm Which Is That Of The Mind Alone.

We Are Rag Dolls Made Out Of Many Ages And Skins, Changelings Who Have Slept In Wood Nests, And Hissed In The Uncouth Guise Of Waddling Amphibians. We Have Played Such Roles For Infinitely Longer Ages Than We Have Been Human. Our Identity Is A Dream. We Are Process, Not Reality.

Every Time We Walk Along A Beach Some Ancient Urge Disturbs Us So That We Find Ourselves Shedding Shoes And Garments Or Scavenging Among Seaweed And Whitened Timbers Like The Homesick Refugees Of A Long War.

I Once Saw, On A Flower Pot In My Own Living Room, The Efforts Of A Field Mouse To Build A Remembered Field. I Have Lived To See This Episode Repeated In A Thousand Guises, And Since I Have Spent A Large Portion Of My Life In The Shade Of A Nonexistent Tree I Think I Am Entitled To Speak For The Field Mouse.

Lights Come And Go In The Night Sky. Men, Troubled At Last By The Things They Build, May Toss In Their Sleep And Dream Bad Dreams, Or Lie Awake While The Meteors Whisper Greenly Overhead. But Nowhere In All Space Or On A Thousand Worlds Will There Be Men To Share Our Loneliness.