Paper roads (Tears for tears) ©Linus 2012 A nice sheet of paper Maybe card size Textured and tinted Beautiful words Maybe a poem A sketch and decorative border Another clean, beautiful piece of textured paper But this time torn down the middle The pieces Side by side Together again A poem A border It is not the same Will never be the same again This is what happens when you make a road The ecosystem is damaged It cannot be as it was The system has been ripped Animals, insects, plants No living things can now interact across this road Life itself has been torn in two Obvious in a jungle or any area previously untouched by humans You can see a scar But it is the same for any road The road that crosses our state or province Tears the life apart And goes for hundreds or thousands of kilometres When the roads crisscross they break up the life in all directions New Zealand and any country has this Tears for tears There are other aspects to this Once the road is there humans go along it and see things to take They take the trees and animals Then they take everything away and plant something To grow and eat Maybe they grow grass and feed animals with it Then not only has the life been torn in two But mostly destroyed Often when they cut down a tree for timber or firewood They don t think to plant some more seeds for later In New Zealand this has happened to nearly 80% of the land If it was a test 80% would be an A You would know nearly all of the questions Most of it This might be described as “excellent” It is the same here This is most Nearly all Gone The cacophony of bird song The vibrant wonder of the jungle forest has gone We don’t need to say forever But we can It would take a thousand years To regrow the forest in its immeasurable variety If the plants and animals were available And we had the will to do it But a lot have gone Forever Soil takes hundreds of years to grow There is a place A paradise Where all still lives Where the roads have not been formed The tear has not been made But the tears are welling There is time and the skill and the will to save this This is big economy We have big history (thanks Dave and Bill) Big science Big data Global approaches Understanding and managing whole systems For all time Now we have big ecology The biosphere To manage and preserve Earth systems and Life for a time ahead We think in terms of Big economy The management of scarce or any resources across a planet Big time too Beyond the now or soon Although there is a sense of immediacy We plan and act together and share the load $3.5 billion dollars to keep the oil in the ground To keep the roads out The tears not torn or shed This is not a trade or a purchase in all eyes But a sharing We live on and benefit from the neo historical destruction Of 80% (an excellent effort) Of the life in our land (this God-forsaken-zone) still While others need food and houses Now we can reach out Help them out Think no longer about mining mine or yours But theirs Not even just those that are But those, and what, might be The number is small When compared with (say) a Nation’s gambling debt (About a billion dollars annually in NZ) Isn’t this the biggest gamble? To tear another tear in one of the last pristine places Knowing now that the poem Won’t be the same? Or the GDP if that is any measure of human flourishing Certainly a measure of how everything else doesn’t But more than this And much, much, more Is the understanding that When we put a road in everything changes More still is seeing that the Wilderness is now small and In an interconnected symbiotic sharing of life we all depend on If not for ourselves or our children at least then for A belief in Life and Love The shear understanding that To exist in time somewhere is an event Miraculous moment of being We have the opportunity (the power, if you like) Responsibility To retain this now Cherish it in perpetuity Support the Yasuni Reach out Reach beyond Shed a tear This time of joy, not regret or grief Tear up the paper Not the roads
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 22:03:35 +0000
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