Annie Dillard on the world

“The world has signed a pact with the devil; it had to. It is a covenant to which every thing, even every hydrogen atom, is bound. The terms are clear: if you want to live, you have to die; you cannot have mountains and creeks without space, and space is a beauty married to a blind man. The blind man is Freedom, and he never goes anywhere without his great dog Death. The world came into being with the signing of the contract. A scientist calls this the Second Law of Thermodynamics. A poet says “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower/drives my green age.” This is what we know. The rest is gravy.”

(Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

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