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Sometimes life can be hard, but there's a purpose behind the struggle, as Elder Sill's next quote in his talk shows us:
The Quote
“The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.
The man who never had to toil to live,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.
“Good timber does not grow at ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees.
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, in rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
Where thickest lies the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold council with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.”
Elder Sill listed the poet as 'unknown' in his talk, but the poem, entitled "Good Lumber" was written by Douglas Malloch.
The Lumberman's Poet?
Who knew there was a poet for people who cut down trees? Not only that, but he was a working man himself, and served as the associate editor of American Lumberman Magazine. And the husband of my ninth cousin once removed! Go figure! :-)
My great-grandfather worked a lot of his adult life cutting wood in a lumber mill in Tacoma, Washington, a single dad raising his three kids. And he was a poet as well. As far as I know, he may have read Douglas Malloch's poetry, and maybe gotten the courage to write his own poetry from Mr. Malloch's example.
With every quote I find, this world seems to get smaller and smaller.
There's a whole bunch of poems he wrote, very similar in nature to my great-grandfather's, but out of all of them I was able to find, this one was my favorite...
Be The Best Of Whatever You Are
By
Douglas Malloch
more Douglas Malloch
If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley — but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can't be a muskie then just be a bass —
But the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
There's something for all of us here,
There's big work to do, and there's lesser to do,
And the task you must do is the near.
If you can't be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun be a star;
It isn't by size that you win or you fail —
Be the best of whatever you are!
Douglas Malloch. "Be The Best Of Whatever You Are." Family Friend Poems, https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/be-the-best-of-whatever-you-are-by-douglas-malloch
Be a scrub in the valley — but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can't be a muskie then just be a bass —
But the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
There's something for all of us here,
There's big work to do, and there's lesser to do,
And the task you must do is the near.
If you can't be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun be a star;
It isn't by size that you win or you fail —
Be the best of whatever you are!
Douglas Malloch. "Be The Best Of Whatever You Are." Family Friend Poems, https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/be-the-best-of-whatever-you-are-by-douglas-malloch
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