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I believe there is only one power, one shaping urge, but I also believe that it infuses everything—the glistening track of the snail along with the gleaming eye of the fawn, the grain in the oak, the froth on the creek, the coiled proteins in my blood and in yours, the mind that strings together these words and the mind that reads them.

The only sure antidote to oblivion is the creation. So I loop my sentences around the trunks of maples, hook them into the parched soil, anchor them to rock, to moon and stars, wrap them tenderly around the ankles of those I love. From down in the pit I give a tug, to make sure my rope of words is firmly hooked into the world, and then I climb.

by Scott Russell Sanders, from Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World, published by Beacon Press in 1993. Sanders  serves as distinguished professor of English at Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana.

Photo by Janet Lane. Bumblebee young clinging to their mother as she feeds on goldenrod flowers.