The Measure

by Nikki Erlick

The measure of the string held instead the full measure of one’s life. From the beginning until the end.

Help them see that we are all the same, all connected. We are all strung together.”

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day.

“The tree, of course, felt like the perfect structure. The Tree of Life. The Tree of Knowledge. The reminder that we will all find our ultimate rest beneath the soil, nourishing the life that grows above us.

That the beginning and the end may have been chosen for us, the string already spun, but the middle had always been left undetermined, to be woven and shaped by us.