Here

here s

“The best and easiest way to get a forest to return to any plot of cleared land is to do nothing–nothing at all, and do it for less time than you think.”
–Richard Powers, The Overstory

here magnetic s

The Oracle really got into my head today–I’ve been thinking of Richard Powers’ book about trees ever since I started reading it.  Is it possible for humans to exist in tree-time, tree-space, way above and beyond the petty grievances and obsessions of their current lives?  It seem to me if we want to survive as a species, we have to try.

here close up s

Breathe   listen
come home–grow like trees
into seed
song and then
forests–be roots blanketing
every wandering

path with wild
tendrils of green sun–
feel the earth
following
always between    belonging
to river stone light

23 thoughts on “Here”

  3. A real song of life, and so beautifully illustrated. I wish we were capable, but can you imagine all those millions of people who admire Trump and Johnson and Bolsonaro and Salvini and Orban and their values, not to mention those who are herded by religious and tribal dictators agreeing to go without their excesses? I can’t. That’s why I’m so pessimistic (and why the Oracle keeps giving me hopeful messages).

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    1. It’s definitely hard to imagine. Powers’ book (which is in part about environmental activists) ends on a mixture of cautious optimism, even though so much has gone/is still going wrong with the movement, with the characters, with the earth. As you have noted, in the end if our tiny species disappears, perhaps the world will be better for it. It can renew itself without our interference. And in the meantime we try to inject a tiny sliver of hope.

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      1. I was struck by you/he said about cleared land returning to forest so easily. We have a big stretch of bottoms that is cool, damp, not suitable for meadow, and hellish to keep cleared of brambles and foxtails. Husband scythes it manually because the ground is too uneven for a machine (even if we had one). We’d love for it to revert to woodland, but we’re afraid if letting it go and for it to turn into a jungle of brambles and not much else. It takes nerve to change land from one use to another.

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        1. In the book an old couple (he is bedridden) have been investigating and trying to identify the nature in their immediate surroundings, They read the quote I put from the book and decide to just let their lawn go and see what happens. The neighbors and the town, of course, go crazy, but it turns into a welcoming place full of growing things and animals. But you already have that. I would guess that brambles are pretty persistent once they’ve laid claim to a piece of land.

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          1. A garden is experiment size. You could hack it down if the trees didn’t grow and all you got were brambles and thistles, elder and dogwood. Of the three close neighbours two have the closely manicured lawn type places, the third has a closely manicured house and a market garden and sheep. They would look askance if we let land revert to nature, seeing nature as an enemy to be vanquished. I don’t care what they think about anything to be honest. My main worry would be that if it turned to jungle, we’d be invaded by hunters every autumn and winter, and poachers the rest of the year.

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