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Saturday, September 30, 2006

Mondrian's Tree




















trees cut down
cut rectangular
pureed shapeless
pulp to paper
rectangular

yet,
i've never seen
a square tree

earth dug up
quarried rectangular
mountains made manageable
baked to brick
rectangular

and i've yet to see
a square mountain

posted by Matt @ 2:22 AM  

11 Comments:

  • At 9/30/2006 2:53 AM, Blogger Matt said…

    (omitted closing stanza)

    yet, i reduce the Almighty
    to square explanations
    and rectangular dreams

    as i prayed outside today
    i saw trees with their shaky leaves
    i saw a sidewalk made of bricks

    i had the odd revelation that squares are a human invention

    nothing God created (that i can think of) is square (or even perfectly circular for that matter)

    we saw trees into 2X4's and use the leftover sawdust to make 8 1/2 X 11 paper

    we take clay and make bricks. we cut down mountains and build pyramids

    our ordering of God's order is a strange perversion of the way he creates.

    and yet there is order to his chaos (google Fibonacci)

    i was looking for a picture of a tree for the blog and i found this cubist abstraction of a tree by Piet Mondrian
    http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/
    site/artist_work_md_112_5.html

    i found it an interesting example of the often square human creativity attempting to represent the often whimsical shape of creation

    thoughts?

     

  • At 9/30/2006 3:01 AM, Blogger Bethany said…

    good thoughts, i agree...i think we take the things in creation (that honestly, we can't really understand) and make them fit our ideas and things we can -- like squares. interesting.

    i am coming home in less than a month, crazy! my date was interesting, good then bad then good again...status remains the same: undefined. thankfully God knows the plans for our lives b/c i sure got no idea.

    will you record your cubist song? i really like that one...

     

  • At 9/30/2006 9:46 AM, Blogger Hendrick Family said…

    That's good. My brain is thinking.

     

  • At 9/30/2006 10:20 AM, Blogger Matt said…

    it's actually not a song...but hey...you may be on to something Beth. less than a month sounds great!

    can anybody think of anything naturally occurring in the world that has perfect (by people standards) geometric shape?

     

  • At 9/30/2006 2:26 PM, Blogger Hendrick Family said…

    I'm still thinking...

    But right now, no.

    Maybe that's why I hate geometry and math and science and stop signs and shape sorters and rubix cube...all of my most hated things are perfectly something.

     

  • At 10/02/2006 5:42 PM, Blogger faith said…

    i'm sitting in a box office. i'm writing this comment in a comment box, looking out of a box window... out at the shaky leaves.

    this was written for me. just for me. i know it. it had to be. i just know it.

     

  • At 10/02/2006 5:45 PM, Blogger faith said…

    this is one of my absolute favorites ever i think. though, that's hard to say with you. but the timing was so perfect for me on this one, so i feel a special bond with it.

    thank you matt. come see me and yes, i got snow. and we will get to ski. =) i'll call soon, it's more friend-friendly

     

  • At 10/08/2006 1:09 PM, Blogger Hendrick Family said…

    I just read Love that Dog.

    I loved EVERY line...every word!

    That has nothing to do with this poem...but the book is a poem...so I thought it could go here. So take that and put it in your red wheelbarrow.

    Heather

     

  • At 10/09/2006 3:59 PM, Blogger Jerod said…

    kansas is a rectangle.

     

  • At 10/09/2006 6:01 PM, Blogger Matt said…

    Dang.
    Blew my whole theory.
    Dang.
    Kansas IS a rectangle.
    Man.
    Dang.

     

  • At 12/21/2006 3:19 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    yeah but who even decided the shape of the states in the first place?
    -filkins

     

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