Thursday, July 14, 2016

Wilderness By Carl Sandburg - And I Am Mourning My Own Wild(er)ness

Our beautiful forest, our magical woods overflowing with wildlife that will go...where??? is being systematically destroyed as I write...clear cut...two of the cruelest, ugliest words in the English language...by an already wealthy man who bought the swampy land, to sell the timber, the trees that have nourished the local ecosystem, and my own soul, for over 30 years.  Flooding will ensue without the land break which the forest has provided for centuries...But WTF does he care?  Right, he doesn't...

I am already mourning the turtles, frogs, raccoons, possums, armadillos, snakes, owls, birds, Hawks' habitats being destroyed.  

I am completely inconsolable...so beyond sad.  

I took a few last photos of the gorgeous Pines and trees across the street that will be gone by next week...My life here will not be the same...being a Moonchild born on the full moon at the height of hurricane season, I am averse to change, especially in nature.  I can all but hear the trees screaming...the animals dying...My heart hurts...Every window in front of my house opens to these beautiful trees full of birdsong, cicadas, frogs' croaking, crickets singing...Screech Owls' talking at night and, at times, God's quiet voice, whispering...

What a nightmare, what a horrific, waking nightmare... 

xo, 
Marion



              See the tall, pretty trees across the street?  Going, going...gone...

My Ent-like Pines/woods have watched over me for 30 years...this photo is this Morning...

         ...and this photo is afternoon...they're falling fast, like wounded giants...

                  Goodbye, sweet Pines...


"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the woman of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”  
                                                                                               ― William Blake


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WILDERNESS By Carl Sandburg

THERE is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood-I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me ... a silver-gray fox ... I sniff and guess ... I pick things out of the wind and air ... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers ... I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me ... a snout and a belly ... a machinery for eating and grunting ... a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun-I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me ... I know I came from saltblue water-gates ... I scurried with shoals of herring ... I blew waterspouts with porpoises ... before land was ... before the water went down ... before Noah ... before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me ... clambering-clawed ... dog-faced ... yawping a galoot's hunger ... hairy under the armpits ... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men ... here are the blond and blue-eyed women ... here they hide curled asleep waiting ... ready to snarl and kill ... ready to sing and give milk ... waiting-I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes-And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart-and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where-For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness. 

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2 comments:

erin said...

it's a deep wound of sorrow. i understand. what is there to say? (it's difficult to not be angry. but even anger changes nothing. what might bring change? i can't imagine a solution these days.)

i'm sorry, marion...

Marion said...

I know, Erin. I've tried to see anything positive...more sky shows through...the moon will be visible longer...BUT I'm still in shock over the "scorched earth" destruction the greedy bastard who bought the land has...he did not have to destroy everything...it's like Mars over there...we walked over last night to see, sadly. For now, I can only weep...the stench of dead wildlife literally hangs in the air I breathe...

Thanks for stopping by and commenting...I read your every post, my friend...Sending you love & hugs... xo