The Discipline of the Forest

for Sig Gissler*

I know, too,
what it is to stand in the forest and watch
as the trees around you fall,
one by one,
until it seems as if you're the only one left standing.
I tried to tell this to the sixth-graders at the Convent.
When they won't listen to each other,
I made them face the wall, away from each other,
in silence,
for five minutes.
Then I asked them if they understood why I made them do this.
They guessed different things but no one guessed what I was trying to teach them.
So I told them that the point of the exercise
was to remind them that they came into the world alone
and would leave it alone
so they should listen to each other
when one of them spoke and broke
the silence that holds us all in isolation.
But they argued with me,
said they were surrounded by family and friends and nurses
when they came into the world
and expected to be so surrounded when they left.
Though I asked them
who would volunteer to go with them on their journey through death,
this made no difference to them
for they were surrounded with friends and classmates.
Better, much better,
it would have been for me to tell them about the strength and character of each tree
that has fallen in my forest.