The Real Work:  Cutting

At the root of the word "account" is the Latin verb "putare," which can mean to cleanse or clear, to cut or prune, or to reckon or think. The word itself, like many words, traces a circuit from physical activity, to mental activity, and back again to the world, where our accounting is double-edged: if our highly evolved skills of representation permit us to make poetry of wildness, they also nurture in us the impulse to clear-cut what we do not understand— uncharted forests, unanalyzable data, grief too strong for words.

More to come...