Nature will not be denied
Nature will not be denied.
Four stories up, there grows a fig tree. This is not some eco-aware roof top garden. It is a wild fig, growing of its own accord. In the harsh environment of North Terrace, unwatered, wlth bricks and mortar for soil, it is alive. It is finding every weakness, every fracture in the building's fabric, and opening the way for more water and seed.
Nature will not be denied. They say we must treat her with care or she will be destroyed. They are wrong. We may well destroy the conditions we need to survive. But nature and life will go on, despite us, and without us. The only question is how much we wish to remain a part of things.
"Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves." Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastwards, springs-
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
(Gerard Manley Hopkin)
Andrew Prior (Circa 2008)
(Return to Climate)
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