Valley Song. Athol Fugard

drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn. His thought passes along the row ends like a mole. What a miraculous seed has he swallowed that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water descending in the dark?

      —Wendell Berry

      Seeds are many things, but everything about seeds—their numbers and forms and structures—has a bearing on their main purpose, to insure continuing life. Seeds are containers of embryonic plants, the embryos of a new generation. Most seeds are objects of beauty of form, proportion, surface and color. Many seeds are so small that their beautiful features escape us. Many others, although large enough to see easily, are such common, everyday objects that we do not really see them. They are, however, worth our careful observation.

      —U.S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1961

      CHARACTERS

      TIME

      The present

      AUTHOR’S NOTE

      The role of the Author and Abraam Jonkers must be played by the same actor.