This Conundrum

My name is inconsistent. I am related to grass. The ebb and flow, the undulation of thin, almost white fibers tell a story. This mixture of tubes and long narrow leaves, scratch a portrait of me into the air. Any force causes the stylus to make another invisible mark. The wind or a squirrel moves me. The weight of the dead crushes me, that is, dead branches.

The grass has a neighbor that is a rock. He says he’s granite, but I think he’s sandstone. He brags that nothing can move him, nothing but large powerful forces. “Untold number of years would be required to wear me down,” he says. “You wont last a season. Send fire my way I don’t care. How would you like a good blaze?”

“My roots can burrow into your cracks and make pieces of you,” says grass. “But you are right. I am no rock. Like they say, the grass of the field is here one day and gone the next. How can I become more consistent?”

“I don’t know,” says rock. “You get pushed around by the wind, but you still make seeds. You even use the wind that pushes you around to disperse your seeds.”

“That is true,” says grass. “ I guess, when I get pushed around so much and feel so dependent on the weather, the soil, and the rest of my environment, I feel less valuable, less important.”

“Well, check this out, grass. I might not be easily moved or changed, but I don’t do anything, I don’t make seeds or grow or mature.”

“You do help with soil erosion so that I can grow.”

“Thanks, grass.”

“No, thank you rock. I just needed some outside perspective.”