The Bamboo Cutter
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I walked where hunger carved its mark in dust,
The bamboo rose like wants I could not still.
I cut one down, yet many took its place,
Desire climbed and pressed against the sky.
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In shadowed past, the forest breathed in hush,
A restless longing stirred beneath my skin.
I claimed the green as something made for me,
And cut as though it had no voice to lose.
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Each hollow stem became a dream I held,
A roof, a bed, a cradle yet to swing.
I shaped my future from the living wood,
And never paused to hear what roots might say.
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My blade came down; the earth replied in pain,
The broken ground released its hidden fangs.
From silent depths, the waiting dangers rose,
Like buried truths returning into light.
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I struck them down, yet still they seemed to grow,
For what we hide will find its way again.
The forest whispered softly through the leaves,
But want had made me deaf to all but need.
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A fragile nest fell broken at my feet,
Small wings not made to meet the open sky.
Above, dark shapes began their patient turn,
For death will follow where we loosen life.
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I turned away, for hunger sealed my sight,
We call it strength, yet hollow out the soul.
The bamboo bent, yet never truly broke,
It spoke of truths I never chose to hear:
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“You rise through me, yet cut the ground you stand,
And lose yourself in all you try to gain.”
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I saw the beasts that took no more than need,
They left the forest whole and walked away.
But I reached far beyond what life required,
And built my dreams on losses left unseen.
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What makes a man;his hunger or his care?
Is worth in what he takes or what he spares?
If all I build must stand on silent loss,
What will remain when all I build is gone?
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A hollow grew within I could not fill,
No shaped desire could quiet what it asked.
For want expands beyond the reach of hands,
And feeds upon the soul it cannot feed.
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Then fear arrived, unyielding, cold, and near,
An elephant that broke what I could not,
A tiger still as time before it strikes,
I saw how small and passing I had been.
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I dropped my claims and ran to keep my breath,
For all desire will bow to living still.
A serpent struck, swift fire within my veins,
The forest spoke at last inside my blood.
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The world grew dim; the green became my dark,
I fell between the wanting and the end.
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I woke where root and silence intertwine,
No longer hand that cuts nor mind that claims.
The forest was not something I could own,
It was the breath that I had always been.
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No master now, but part of all that lives,
In leaf and wind, in shadow, soil, and time.
The trees are not possessions, but our kin,
Their roots run deep through everything we are.
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Each cut we make returns in unseen ways,
Each loss we cause becomes our future’s shape.
To take with care or strip the world to bone,
This choice lives quietly in every breath.
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Remember every root beneath the dust,
In every fall there lies a sacred trust.
So walk the earth as one who learns, not takes,
For in its fall, we fall and lose ourselves.

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