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IN THE SWEAT OF THY FACE |
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Maya Bernstein |
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"By the sweat of your face shall you eat bread until your
return to the land, because you are taken from it;
you are dust, and to dust shall you return." (Genesis 3:19)
A farmer works in the center of his wheat field and clouds travel
above him, side to side. The dirt--deep, damp, packed into fertile
earth--breathes lightly beneath him, and he holds in his calloused hands
its child, God's seed, developed in her womb, delivered by his sweat, by
his toil.
Cursed is man, doomed to wander, never to rest, forced off his
land, destined to follow the curious sheep. He grows like a desert plant,
green against rocky white, branching into the air, clutching with his
roots to the tumbling earth.
A farmer's son sits on a bench watching the cars rush by, and he
breathes with the rhythm of their horns. Airplanes travel above him, and
he smiles at the pace of the clouds as he finishes his sandwich, dropping
his crust to the paved dry ground. He runs to catch his bus; it gives
birth to dead black air; he trips over the roots of The Monumental Tree.
Cursed is man trapped within the natural world, doomed to live by
cycles of sun of rain, destined to bloom and wither like the desert's wild
flowers. He grows like a patch of ivy on a sky scraper, green upon grey,
choking the building, clutching with his roots to the shiny metal.
Maya Bernstein is a Columbia College freshman.