A Leaf On Yggdrasil

"...we belong here. The atoms of our bodies were born of the primordial fireball and later great suns. Our race is a twig, our spirit a leaf on Yggdrasil, the tree of life that has grown, ever-changing, through billions of years to overshadow its world."
-Poul Anderson, Introduction IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, 1997), pp. xi-xii AT p. xi.

I thought that this passage was sufficiently poetic and striking to warrant quotation. It seamlessly blends the polar opposites of Poul Anderson's fiction, Norse mythology and hard sf.

Remember: "Our race is a twig, our spirit a leaf..."