"O if we but know what we do
When we delve or hew -
Hack and rack the growing green!
....even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been."
___ Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Binsey Poplars'
This poem was written by Hopkins in response to the felling of the poplar trees at Binsey in Oxford - a place where he often walked and found inspiration. The felling of the trees and the destruction of wild green places is always a sorrow. When green life is cleared for housing or landfill sites, we feel strong resentment. Human beings have been clearing the earth for agriculture and habitation from early times. Desertification began to replace habitation long ago.
It is easy to wax sentimental about the loss of particular trees and green places, but the war on the green world is not a world issue, as tree cover shrinks from year to year. It is not primarily our own human survival that is at issue, but that of the many species that rely upon the green world for their livelihood and habitat and the complex food chains that stem from the plants and the soil. For humans and their fellow creatures, it is a question of whether our descendants will have sufficient vegetation to sustain the continuance of life.
"Plant something in your garden or in a pot inside your home, to help replace the loss of the green."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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