The Growing by Mongane Wally Serote

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No!

This is not dying when the trees

Leave their twigs

To grow blindly long into windows like fingers into eyes.

And leave us unable

To wink or to blink or to actually close the eye,

The mind –

Twigs thrusting into windows and leaves falling on the sills,

Are like thoughts uncontrolled and stuffing the heart.

Yes,

This is teaching about the growing of things:

If you crowd me I’ll retreat from you,

If you still crowd me I’ll think a bit,

Not about crowding you but about your right to crowd me;

If you still crowd me, I will not, but I will be thinking

About crowding you.

If my thoughts and hands reach out

To prune the twigs and sweep the leaves,

There was a growth of thought here,

Then words, then action.

So if I say prune instead of cut,

I’m teaching about the growing of things.